Interludes
by Eowyn77
Summary: MoS 'verse, set between a superhero being brought to his knees and a certain, fateful introduction. It would take months for Metropolis to return to normal, and while Superman is patient, Clark isn't quite THAT patient. Lois is either smitten or in denial, but regardless, a world-class reporter never stops asking questions.
1. Love Letters

Author's Note: I'm venturing into a new fandom with this story, so please be kind. :) Also, this fic will contain spoilers for Man of Steel; you have been warned.

A quick comment on timing within this fic: In the movie, Martha is picking apples in the backyard and Clark is watching football when Zod makes his initial transmission, which puts the timing anywhere from mid-August to late October. Judging by how green the corn on their farm is, I leaned toward the earlier part of that time window. In the final scene, Lombard tries to court Lois with court-side tickets. (Ha!) Basketball is played throughout the winter months, of course, but "March madness" is a very real ailment. ;) That, taken together with the fact that Clark is riding a bike at the beginning of the scene at the Daily Planet, makes me think that Clark got hired on at the Planet in March sometime. So the movie builds in a gap of time between the battle and the Planet that's between 5-8 months long and in this story, I take advantage of that time period. :)

* * *

Lois sat cross-legged on her living-room floor with her laptop on her coffee table, finishing up one of the hardest stories she'd ever written. Some other stories had been intellectually hard because she didn't have all the pieces yet that she needed to solve the puzzle. Others were emotionally hard, when she had to write about the horrors of war or when kids were hurt or killed. This time, though, it was hard because she knew far, far too much. It was an odd mental exercise for her, censoring her own writing like this. Some paragraphs had literally gone through a dozen drafts.

At least she had a handle for Clark now that she could use publicly, even if it was more of a description than a name: Superman. In this raw, slippery prose she was telling as much of his story as she could without hurting the man who, the last time she was alone with him, clung to her waist like a frightened child. Even now she smiled sadly at the memory. For all his strength, she had seen far more of death and horror than he had before the last twenty-four hours. In this, she was stronger, and the realization had sparked something profound in her. He - the man who saved the world, the one who could fly, who could tear steel like tin foil - _he_ needed _her_. It was a responsibility she didn't take lightly, one that surpassed every other obligation and goal she'd had before walking into that space ship in Canada. Clark needed her, and she would be there for him in any way she could.

If she was at all annoyed that he hadn't called (hadn't stopped by in non-alien clothes before skipping town, hadn't flown through her balcony window last night to test if a second kiss really would be downhill or not), she hid it away behind the focus she always felt as deadlines loomed. The downtown was a mess but it was an unwritten rule at the Planet that, unless you were unconscious or dead, you did your job. Perry had ordered everyone to work from home who could, and those who couldn't were ordered to wear sensible shoes, pack a lunch, and bring a full day's worth of water. The home of the Daily Planet had been spared during the battle, and they had a generator back-up to power the web servers and the printing press. They'd missed yesterday's issue of course, but they'd been through fire and brimstone already and there was no rain in the forecast, so even hell or high water weren't good excuses today. Copy was due at 3:45 PM sharp.

Her inbox chimed with a new email, and when she saw there was no subject line, she moved to delete it. (Only misspelled words were a better indication that it was most likely a phishing scam.) As the mouse cursor hovered over the address, though, she paused and read it. And blinked. And read it again. It was a gmail address from a user named OutOfThisWorldHope1980.

Hope. Out-of-this-world hope. It couldn't be. Could it? Mentally she counted back...2013 minus 33 years...1980. Only someone who had been privy to her conversation with him in the FBI's interrogation room could have known that. Which could be several hundred NSA or FBI or whatever agents.

Or it could be him.

"Dammit," she growled as she skimmed over her draft one last time. It wasn't perfect. She did still technically have half an hour before it was due. But with that tantalizing email sitting in her inbox, there was no way she'd be able to focus now.

Screw it. If Perry thought she was slipping, she'd blame head trauma or something. It'd be believable after a day like yesterday.

Lois closed the draft and sent it to him and then eagerly opened the mysterious email.

All it said was, "What's the best way to discreetly contact you?"

Lois grinned, but her reporter's instincts kicked in and she carefully considered her next move. That single sentence was not enough for her to tell if it was Clark or some government thug trying to impersonate him.

"That depends," she wrote back. "If you are who I think you are, answer me this. Who was I visiting when I first offered to tell your story?"

Mere seconds later, a reply came through. "My adoptive father. The first time we met, I was looking for my biological one."

_It was him!_ This time Lois actually squealed before forcing herself to consider his first question. What was the best way for them to communicate? She could hardly put "Superman" on her contact list, and everyone knew that she knew Superman's true identity so "Clark Kent" was also out. Come to think of it, she wouldn't be surprised if the military or the FBI or somebody had a warrant to monitor her phone calls in the hope that he'd try to contact her. Maybe she was just being paranoid, but remembering how _defeated_ he'd looked after killing Zod, she decided to err on the side of caution. He trusted her, and she would protect him.

Phone calls could be traced, even if the two of them didn't accidentally say something too revealing. He could mail a letter to her from anywhere in the world, but for her to reply, she'd need somewhere to send it. An email could be traced to an IP address if the email provider were in the mood to cooperate or was issued a subpoena.

"This is probably it," she finally answered. "If anyone's trying to find you, they'll be proverbially looking over my shoulder until they do. If they're really determined, they'll eavesdrop on my phone, internet accounts, probably even bug my walls and put cameras wherever they think they can get away with it. Discreet will have to happen on your end. *IF* someone is spying on me, they'll try to pinpoint your location using your IP address. Move around and use a public setting, preferably one without security monitors. DON'T email from your cell phone, though, or anything else with a GPS. And delete my emails as soon as you've read them. Just to be safe, of course."

"I'm sorry," he wrote back. "It sounds like you've done this before, though."

"LOL Don't sweat it, OotW Hope. (It's a good username, but it's kind of awkward to abbreviate.) I'm willing to take extraordinary measures to protect my sources."

"Would you prefer that I don't contact you? We're talking about the paparazzi on steroids. (Hm. Suggestions?)"

"Or government-authorized peeping toms. But like I said, you're worth it. You're the biggest story of my life. (How 'bout I just call you WOot? Same letters, just mixed up.)"

"I don't know how much more information I can give you. I'd love nothing more than for yesterday's events to be the end of the story. (That has to be the oddest thing I've ever been called, but it's generic enough. Call me Woot.)"

Lois smirked at that even as her curiosity grew. What other nicknames had he been called? It was one of a hundred questions that, even like this, she'd never be able to ask. "Well, WOot, there are two answers to that. Firstly, your story began long before I met you, and you'd be fooling yourself to think it ended yesterday. Secondly, that's not what I meant." She paused, ridiculously nervous about writing the next part. It was so...sophomoric to confess her undying love for him in an email, especially when they barely knew each other. But there was something compelling about him that went far beyond his superpowers (and his chiseled abs underneath that skin-tight suit, she admitted in the back of her mind). He _cared_. There was compassion and gentleness that guided his strength. Even when he chose to take a life, it cost him more than she could fathom. He'd plucked her from the sky - twice - but she was the one who caught and held him beside Zod's corpse. He was vulnerable. He deserved to know that she was, too. "Your particular story has become highly personal. The kind that keeps me up nights."

"Lois, the whole world-almost-ending thing happened just yesterday. You've only had one night of lost sleep."

She cocked her head, trying to figure out what he meant by that, and then re-read their previous conversation. Did he think his story was personal to her in a bad way? As in, she was freaking out? Or was he just flirting and trying to coax something more direct out of her? She hoped it was the latter. "It's daydreams about you that are keeping me up, Woot, not nightmares. And they began a while ago."

She waited for him to write back until seconds dragged into minutes. Maybe he had to go? It worried her that maybe the government or whoever was already on to him, had scanned her email, and was closing in on him.

A reply finally popped up in her inbox. "It's become very personal for me, too, but you're talking about living under a microscope for who knows how long. That's a lot to ask of anybody, and it could impact your friends and family, too. I can't bring myself to isolate you like that."

She felt a lump in her throat when she realized that she didn't have anyone close enough to her to even worry about. She'd already isolated herself, chasing the next big story. The people at the Planet were pretty much her entire social sphere. After a couple of false starts at trying to explain that, she finally settled for, "You. Are. Worth. It."

His reply was almost immediate. "I _will_ find a way to convince them that they won't find me if I don't want to be found. Just...it might take a while."

"Worth. It," she answered.

"Thank you. I should probably go, but I'll email you when I can. And for the record? It's not looking downhill yet, Lois. Bye."

She touched the word "Bye" and ruefully smiled even as her heart warmed. It'd be a miracle if she didn't end up with full-fledged clinical paranoia after all this, but "worth it" didn't even begin to describe how she felt. She sent a copy of the email to her printer and then deleted it from first her inbox and then her trash.

A peanut butter sandwich, an apple, and bottled water would have to be good enough for dinner because there were thousands of stories still to be told in the city this afternoon and evening, and Lois had a job to do. But on her way out the door, she grabbed the page off her printer, folded it, and slipped it into her back pocket. Clark, Superman, Kal, Woot, her mystery man - she'd carry him with her tonight.

…

Lois dragged herself back through her front door almost eight hours later. She'd pushed herself physically before for stories and had been in some pretty dicey situations. The flak-jacket had actually saved her life a couple of times. Tonight hit home, though, literally. At least three people in her apartment building were missing and feared dead.

Exhausted, she set her laptop on the kitchen table and started it booting. As an afterthought, she grabbed a diet cola and a cup of yogurt out of the fridge and brought them to the table. She'd at least organize her thoughts before hitting the sack, and there was an email she wanted to send, too.

Two hours later, she had a working draft and could call it a night in good conscience. With a weary smile, she reached for her camera and downloaded the images to her laptop, flipping through them until she found the one she wanted. In the background, rescue workers with heavy equipment were digging through the rubble. In the foreground and just to the left, a grandfather and grandson were together holding up a large piece of posterboard in the corner of a barrier made of yellow police tape. The sign simply said, "Thank you!" but the boy was wearing a white shirt with a very peculiar S drawn on the front in red marker.

She opened a new email, attached the picture, and typed, "Thought you might appreciate this. Sweet dreams." As she wrote those last two words, though, she realized that he probably wouldn't sleep well. The moment was etched into her memory - Clark snapping the neck of one of his own people, falling to his knees, roaring in a cry of rage and loss and despair, and then holding her, clinging to her. Lois could only imagine how that moment might haunt Clark. Deleting "sweet dreams," she instead wrote, "You deserve our thanks as much as these other heroes do." And then she clicked "Send."

Standing and stretching, she tossed her spoon in the sink and took an ibuprofen for the muscles that were already sore. As she swallowed it down, her laptop chimed with an email alert and she choked. Coughing and thumping her chest, she hurried over to open it.

It was from Clark. "Do you think I should come help? I could, a lot, but it could also end badly. As in, with handcuffs. Everyone knows I contributed to the carnage, and I don't want to do more harm than good."

She replied, "That's up to you. You might sleep better if you do, though. Your call."

"Good point," he answered. "I'll think about it. And I just realized it's 2 AM where you are. Get some sleep!"

"Will do," she wrote. "G'night, Woot." Then she printed the email and deleted it.

When she crawled into bed, it was with a lighter heart than she'd expected. She just might have another story to write about Superman tomorrow. It was silly, but she folded up the printed pages into an origami heart and slept with them under her pillow. To assuage her ego, she promised herself to burn them in the morning.


	2. Public Relations

Lois woke up an hour earlier than usual to her phone ringing with a call from Jenny. "Hello?" she groggily answered.

"Lois, you'll never believe it! Superman's here, in Metropolis! He just flew right up to the Emergency Response Team and he's offering to help!"

"That's great!" Lois answered, kicking off her blankets to sit upright.

"Steve's on the scene, but Perry wants you down there asap. Superman's refusing to answer reporters' questions, but he figures you...well...you seemed to have a rapport with him. Perry thought you might be able to get an exclusive even."

Lois' stomach lurched with worry. "What do you mean, rapport?" Had they also figured out that Superman was really Clark?

"Well, he did kiss you. We all saw it - me, Perry, and Steve."

"Oh," she breathed in relief. Her coworkers knowing she had some kind of relationship with Clark - with Superman - could make things more complicated, but she pushed that thought to the back of her mind. "Give me half an hour to get ready and another...hour maybe to get downtown. The subway will only get me halfway there with their limited service right now, and I have no idea how bad the streets are after that. But let me know if he goes anywhere."

It took her almost two hours to finally stand in front of the command center for the rescue efforts (though she did take the extra five minutes necessary to burn the papers and crush the ashes into something unrecognizable - she didn't need his words on a piece of paper when she could see the real thing in a few minutes). By the time she got a press pass and beyond the barricade, another half-hour had passed. "Lombard!" she called out as she worked her way to him. "Steve, what did I miss?"

"Not much," he answered, searching the sky. "He's flying around and every couple of minutes he tells the rescue workers where to dig, how far down, and how many people there are. If there are any bodies in the way, he'll tell them that, too. When he gets ahead of the rescue crews he does some digging of his own."

Lois frowned, realizing that meant he was somehow sensing all the people who had been killed during the battle. She'd hoped that helping out would also help him cope with the guilt that she strongly suspected lingered in his heart. It had probably backfired, though.

Another ten minutes passed before any survivors were brought to the triage. Two ambulances came roaring up, followed by Superman himself. He was flying with a broken, bleeding body in his arms, and the doctors immediately ushered him to the front of the triage line.

"Superman!" Lois yelled to him.

"He's busy right now," the police press liaison with the badge "Sgt. Kelley" on her pocket tersely told her.

"I just have a few questions for him."

"You're distracting him," Kelley corrected.

A passing EMT grumbled, "He's out here saving lives, and you reporters flocking like vultures. Back off!"

But Clark - Superman, she mentally corrected herself - looked her way.

"What about a press conference?" Lois persisted to Kelley. "After sunset."

"We're working around the clock here. Why do you think he'd stop at sunset?"

_Because he gets his energy from the sun_, Lois thought to herself. She was 99% sure he wouldn't _lose _his superpowers at sundown, but if he was using those abilities all day without stopping, he'd at least work up an appetite. Probably. Yet another detail she couldn't talk about, not even with Woot. "Well he's got to stop for dinner."

The press liaison snorted. "He hasn't even stopped for a drink of water yet and he's been here three hours."

"That doesn't mean he won't get hungry eventually. Just ask him, okay?"

Kelley reluctantly nodded and stepped aside to talk to the response captain. Lois watched the message verbally pass from the spokeswoman to the captain to one of the triage nurses to Superman. He glanced her way, a question in his eyes. _What is he asking?_ Lois wondered. If it was her idea? If she approved? She nodded and he tilted his head ever so slightly in answer before speaking again with the nurse. Again the message visibly moved from the triage back to the command center to the area designated for the press corps. "He's agreed to a _brief _press conference right after dinner. But in the meantime you'll all need to back off and let him do what he came here to do."

Lois didn't waste time while waiting. She found out that, thanks to Superman's help, they had already rescued ten times as many people that morning than the whole of yesterday, and that was despite the fact that there had almost certainly more fatalities during the night. They'd finally cleared the roads enough that ambulances, firetrucks, and police transports could move more freely through the damaged zones and the rescue crews had tripled overnight because of it.

That information came through official channels, but what separated Lois from the rest was that, when other people looked at something, she looked around. When one of the nurses walked away from the triage with a pack of cigarettes in hand, Lois' reporter instincts tingled and she followed her.

The nurse found a quiet street-corner and all but collapsed to sit on the curb. Lois waited until she had lit up before gingerly approaching. "You smoke?" she asked.

The nurse looked up at her with empty eyes. "Yeah. Got a problem with it?"

"No, but it seems odd to me that someone with your medical knowledge would. Makes me think you've seen some pretty rough things."

"Yeah," she softly snorted.

"May I?" Lois asked, pointing to the curb beside where she was sitting.

The nurse shrugged. "It's a free country."

Lois settled down beside her and then waited in patient silence. She'd learned long ago that most people will fill an empty silence if given enough time. The nurse didn't disappoint. "I quit, you know," she said, raising the cigarette in explanation. "Five years ago. But after the last couple of days..."

"You've been here that long?"

"Since before the dust settled, yeah. I sleep when I can. They're putting us up in a hotel a couple of blocks away so that we don't have to fight our way through a commute."

"Thank you," Lois impulsively said. "From all of us, all who are waiting and worrying, thank you. I'm Lois Lane, by the way. With the Daily Planet."

"The Planet, huh?" the nurse warily asked.

Lois shrugged, attempting to seem as harmless as possible. A thought occurred to her, and she reached for her camera. "If you haven't left the downtown, have you seen this?" Then she pulled up image after image on the camera display of pictures she'd taken on her way there that morning. People cheering the rescue workers, handing out bottled water to the utilities crews, leaving flowers and notes at makeshift shrines. "These people thank you, miss."

"Lynette," the nurse mumbled. "My name's Lynette Jordan."

"Lynette," Lois repeated with an encouraging smile. "They want to help anyway they can. What can they do for you?"

"Donate blood," Lynette immediately answered. "We always need more blood."

"I know many have, but I'll put out the call again. Anything else?"

Lynette swallowed hard. "It's probably not politically correct, but pray for us. For the injured and for the rest of us here. I don't care how they pray or who they pray to or if they just want to send us mental well-wishes, but..."

But she needed to know that, in the middle of this days-long nightmare, someone cared. Lois' thoughts immediately went to Clark, who cared more than anyone else she knew. "Politically correct or not, I'll tell these people," she tilted the camera, "that you'd like our thoughts and prayers. You're the one who's serving us and we want to give you everything we can that _you _think will help. Anything else?"

Lynette shook her head "no" and Lois nodded in acceptance. This woman had opened up to her, but she had come out here for some peace and quiet, and Lois respected that. Still... "Do you mind if I ask you just one question?"

"What is it?"

"Superman flies people to the triage sometimes. Why is that?"

"They're the hopeless cases," Lynette answered. "He doesn't give up on anybody, though. Not if they still have a pulse."

Hope for the hopeless - that sounded like Clark.

"We've been able to save a couple of them," Lynette added. "The EMTs wouldn't have brought them in, but he did and we stabilized them. Two more people who can thank him for their lives."

Lois nodded. "Thanks for your time, Lynette. Would you mind if I shared your name and some of what we talked about in an article?"

"Naw, I guess not. Except for the smokes. I don't want my kids knowing I've started up again."

"Sure," Lois agreed with a gentle smile. "Thanks again, and if there's anything else you want to add or if I can do anything to help, just let me know."

Lois stood to leave, and Lynette suddenly blurted out, "Why us?" She looked up at Lois and she could see in Lynette's eyes just how much that question had eaten at her. "Why Metropolis? Why not D.C. or New York? Or Beijing or Mexico City or wherever?"

Like a blow, Lois realized it was because this was _her _home. Zod had personally gone out of his way to hurt _her_. The guilt was sickening, and she was genuinely unsettled by the fact that Zod had singled her out for that kind of malice. While she still sympathized with Clark, a part of her was fiercely glad Zod was dead and couldn't harm her or her city or anyone else ever again.

"I wish I could answer that," Lois finally said.

Lynette ruefully frowned and took a long drag on her cigarette. Lois left without another word.

…

As promised, the emergency response team called a press conference after the day shift stopped for dinner. Superman entered the room flanked by the men and women he'd worked beside all day, but unlike when Lois had seen him in handcuffs, these officers respectfully kept their distance. Sgt. Kelley, the spokeswoman from the morning, started off by giving them an update on the rescue efforts and then introduced Superman before opening the meeting up to questions.

Reporters shouted over each other, and Superman pointed to one of the men in the first row.

He immediately stood. "Mark Runyan with Channel 2. You were gone for more than a day. Where did you go and what made you come back?"

"News reports," he answered, his gaze sweeping the room, only hesitating for the briefest of seconds when he met Lois' eyes. "I came back because I saw just how much I could do for the city by offering my unique services to the emergency departments." He glanced back at the police and fire chiefs and then addressed the reporters again. "They are the true heroes here, and I'm grateful they've let me help."

"Where did you go?" Hammond persisted.

Superman frowned and answered, "I'm not comfortable answering that. Next."

Every reporter in the room tried to call out questions, but this time he pointed at Lois. "Lois Lane with the Daily Planet," she automatically identified herself as she stood. "As I've gone around the city interviewing people, many of them have expressed gratitude for you and all you've done. What would you say to them?"

"I'd say..." He paused and glanced down for a moment, gathering his thoughts. When he looked back up, Lois again saw that determined glint in his eyes. He was speaking now as the man who had saved the world. "Two days ago, I had to make a choice between the people of my birth and the people of my home. I chose Earth. That anyone can feel gratitude after all the suffering we've endured since then speaks to the greatness of the human spirit. Thank you. You've reminded me that I made the right choice."

Several more reporters clamored for his attention, and after a couple of seconds, he selected another woman. "Marta Mendoza with the Metropolis Inquisitor. You say Earth is your home, and the transmission indicated that you've lived here a long time. Are you from Metropolis?"

"I'm not comfortable answering that. Next."

He pointed to a man this time, and he said, "Paul Baker with Channel 16. What's next for you? How long do you plan to stay in Metropolis?"

"Until I can't find any more survivors," he answered. "That's all I'm focused on right now. Next."

Kelley leaned over the microphone and said, "Three more."

Superman pointed to another male reporter.

"Jacob Ivers with Channel 11. Smallville, Kansas was heavily damaged shortly before Metropolis was attacked. Are the two connected, and if so, how?"

"I can't comment on that," Superman answered. "Next."

He pointed to another woman, and she said, "Shaleena Walker with Channel 7. Over the last several hours, you've shown an uncanny ability to find people buried in the rubble. Just how do you do that? Super smell?"

"I'm not an alien search-and-rescue dog, if that's what you mean," he answered with a flicker of a smile. "As for the rest, I'm not comfortable discussing that right now. Next."

He pointed to yet another woman. "Amy Li with LuthorCorp Media. If Earth is your home, where and who are the people of your birth?"

"My planet was called Krypton, and it was destroyed," he stoically answered. "That's all I have to say tonight. Thank you."

The officers who stood with him ushered him off the stage and he left without a backward glance.

Lois' phone started ringing before she could make it out the door. It was her boss, and she groaned before she even answered. "Hi, Perry."

"What kind of question was that?" he demanded. "That was total kid-glove treatment! What are you, his PR department now?"

He had a point, and it made Lois defensive. "He was shutting everybody else down. At least he gave me a full answer." With a frustrated sigh, she added, "I'm working on building a rapport still, okay?"

"You looked like you already had a rapport with him. That wasn't just a peck on the lips."

Mindful that this conversation might be monitored, she said, "It was in the heat of the moment, Perry. We thought that the battle was over. And for the record, we haven't kissed again. Or even really spoken alone. To my knowledge, it was a one-time thing. Happy?"

"Not really. Keep trying to build that rapport, then. Just don't go soft. I need you playing in the big leagues on this one, Lois."

"I was the only one who got a full answer," she reminded him. "I'm as sharp as ever."

…

Lois was able to work on her tablet during downtime at the command center and she had a usable draft of her story about Superman - complete with Lynette's part and Lois' own analysis of the press conference - ready for the morning edition. (Lombard had covered the day's events for the evening edition. She'd deny to everyone but herself that she was pleased by the fact that Perry gave him the bit story so that she could have time to draft an article that had some real depth. It was the kind of thing you'd give to the senior member of a writing team, not that Lois considered Lombard her partner in any way, shape, or form. She just appreciated Perry's good judgment.)

Taking a cue from the rescue teams, Lois found a hotel five blocks away and checked in there instead of wasting time fighting her way to and from the scene of the battle. She had enough of the human interest material to last her several days; now it was time to knuckle down and do some investigative reporting. Unfortunately, she had to yet again tell only half the story and make it look like a whole. And not just any whole, a whole worthy of her as a reporter and of the Daily Planet. With a frustrated sigh, she opened her hotel room and dropped her backpack on the bed. Trying to delay the inevitable balancing act she faced with this story, she pulled out her laptop and booted it up to check her email.

She'd checked it on her phone in the morning, but knowing that Clark - Superman - was busy, she hadn't bothered looking again until this evening. There wasn't anyone or anything else more pressing than her work today. But now she was kicking herself. Buried under so many other messages that it hadn't been visible in her phone's inbox, she'd received an email from OutOfThisWorldHope1980 at 5:30 that morning.

She eagerly opened it.

"I'm really sorry, Lois, but there's just no way for me to visit Metropolis right now. Work is going to keep me busy for the next several days. Maybe longer. (I won't bore you with the details, especially since I know you'll be busy at the center of everything. Clean-up downtown isn't going to happen overnight, I'm sure.)

Also, don't take this personally, but I saw a lot of disgusting bugs in your apartment the last time I was there. Sorry I'm such a germaphobe, but I just don't think I could handle being there until you get it taken care of. I'll be in touch, though. - Woot"

Lois sighed heavily. He'd actually come to visit her but the government or whoever had beat him to it and had bugged her apartment. In the back of her mind, Lois was grudgingly impressed. They had moved _fast_. Unless they were bold enough to break in while she was there and asleep, they must have done it while she was out working last night.

It was official; she was under the microscope now. If they'd invaded her privacy like that, then she had no doubt that her phone and other electronic communications were being monitored, too. Hitting the "Reply" button, she typed, "Guess I'd better clean up my act. Thanks for the heads up, and I'll see what I can do. Email me when you can."


	3. Questions and Answers

Lois walked quickly through the drizzling rain, deep in thought. It was mid-October, nearly two months since the battle, and there was an outside chance the rain would turn to snow overnight. Normally she would have taken a cab this late at night, but the exercise of walking to and from the subway often helped her be a little sharper when she was puzzling over a story.

In this case, the puzzle was yet again how to make a whole story from half-truths. She'd developed a working friendship with James Hyer, a Department of Homeland Security agent. It would be an exaggeration to call him a source; he'd given her background information from time to time, nothing about specific programs or incidents but enough general knowledge to ask some very productive questions.

That changed two days ago when Hyer called asking to take her out to lunch. Something about his tone and the fact that he would want to take her out at all made her immediately agree. Her instincts were telling her this would be professional, not personal, and Lois had _very _good instincts. She'd been right. Today over sandwiches and salad, he informed her that the number of drones patrolling US airspace had recently tripled. Every branch of the military was bringing them home from overseas and was unofficially lending them to the DHS. Worse, some of them were still weaponized. On paper, they were merely receiving some flight upgrades and those upgrades were being tested at military bases around the nation. Records of flight frequency and duration, however, made it clear that they were being used to spy on US citizens.

Hyer was mostly concerned about what this might mean for civil liberties, but Lois suspected the population at large wasn't the target of the uptick in domestic espionage. Not if the government's eavesdropping devices in her own apartment were any indication. At the same time, it _was _an important story.

Someone grabbed her from behind. A hand clamped down over her mouth while an arm wrapped around her waist. She struggled but her assailant was too fast, dragging her backward down an alley so quickly that she couldn't get her feet under her. Then she was bodily pinned face-first against a door and, with the clarity born of adrenaline, she realized she was trapped. Hidden in the doorway like this, in the dark and in the rain, no one would be able to see whatever happened next.

Her assailant dug into her raincoat pocket, and she struggled harder when she realized he was after her phone. A stolen purse meant lost money, but a stolen phone meant most of her digital accounts could be compromised. There was a clatter she recognized all too well - her phone hitting the ground and its back popping off. Her mugger leaned close - she could feel his warmth against her neck in the chill night - and quietly said, "I can do things other people can't."

She went rigid in shock and tried to say "Clark?" against the hand that was still over her mouth.

He chuckled softly and said, "No. I'm Woot,right?"

She relaxed, falling into weak laughter against the chest that she only now realized was far more hardened than a mere human's would be. He released her, and she whirled to catch him in a tight hug. "You jerk," she grumbled in his ear, though she was grinning like an idiot. "I can't even tell you to never do that again."

"Sorry I scared you," he murmured, holding her close and resting his cheek against her hair. "And sorry about your phone."

Lois leaned back and he stooped to pick it up. It had fallen in the lee of the doorway onto dry concrete, and he handed the pieces back to her. "Hopefully it'll still work. I had to get the battery out somehow."

She slipped the phone and its back into one pocket and put the battery in the other. "They activated the microphone," she grumbled in annoyance. "If they were eavesdropping through it, they'll already know I'm off their grid. We don't have much time."

"Maybe. Maybe not." He leaned against the doorframe opposite her, eyes scanning the street at the mouth of the alley, looking for anyone who might be coming after Lois. In the reflected headlights of passing cars, she noticed that he wore regular clothes and stubble on his face again.

"There's a bug sewn into your raincoat, too, but the battery's dead. I hope that means they're giving up on trying to find me through you. I don't think they're following you anymore, just watching your apartment and your office at the Daily Planet. Or they might be using less-obvious methods to spy on you."

"So you're testing that theory." She tilted her head. "And you did it in a way that you can run away if someone shows up and no one would be the wiser that it was you. That's brilliant."

He smiled, his gaze darting to hers, before scanning the street again. "Thanks. I've had a lot of time to think about it."

The implications - that he had thought long and hard about how he could see her again - warmed her heart in ways that it really shouldn't. She still barely knew the man, for all that they'd done together. She was full of so many questions. "So...we wait about fifteen minutes? Long enough that anyone eavesdropping on me has a chance to 'rescue' me?"

"That was my thought."

She nodded in agreement and leaned against the doorframe behind her, her stance mirroring his. _This is perfect_, she thought, _he's a captive audience_. "So how did you know about the bug in my coat?"

"The same way I could read Dr. Hamilton's name tag in the interrogation room. I...can see _through _things, kind of like an X-ray. Actually, I can see along most of the electromagnetic spectrum if I want to."

"X-ray vision."

He shrugged.

"So you, what, scanned me?"

He ducked his head a little. "I needed to be sure."

She chuckled softly. "You know, that gives the phrase 'checking a girl out' a whole new meaning."

He flashed another grin, and Lois thought she saw a hint of relief in it.

"So what other superpowers do you have?" she wondered.

"I'm not sure. I didn't realize I could fly until after I found the scout ship in Canada. But I _do _know I have enhanced sight and hearing."

"Smell?" she interjected with a little smile. He never did answer that at the press conference.

"Yes, but I've never found much of a use for it. My skin is much tougher, obviously, but I seem to have better tactile senses, too."

"You feel more pain than other people do," she murmured in surprise.

He shook his head 'no'. "Like I said, my skin's tougher, so I don't have the kind of pain that comes from injury. I was just...hypersensitive until I figured out how to control it. I learned to read Braille really quickly, though."

"Naturally," she smirked. "Taste?"

"Yes. I hated Kool-Aid and popsicles as a kid because all I could taste was the food coloring. I can handle it better now, but red will always be bitter."

She filed that tidbit of information away just in case it became useful in the future - like if she ever was able to coax him into a French kiss. No gum or breath fresheners, especially anything red. "And there's the superhuman strength," she added.

He nodded. "And the heat vision."

There was quiet regret in his voice and she suspected he was thinking of her screaming while he cauterized her wound. Impulsively, she closed the space between them, resting her head against his chest. "I'm glad you can do things other people can't. It's saved my life several times. And the lives of so many others."

His only answer was to hold her close, resting his chin on the top of her head as he continued to scan the street. He was warm, and Lois slipped her chilled hands under his open jacket. With her head against his chest, she heard his heart react. "Sorry," she muttered, pulling her hands away. "Didn't mean to freeze you out."

"No, it's fine," he hastily said. "I don't mind. It's my fault you're standing out here in the cold." There was something exceptionally warm in his voice when he added, "Go ahead, actually."

Grinning, she cuddled closer. He had emailed her less and less as time went on, and she hadn't heard from him for two and a half weeks. This was more than she'd feared she'd ever have again. Intellectually, she'd understood why he'd kept away, but she also knew that absence didn't necessarily make the heart grow fonder. A part of her had wondered if he'd gotten bored with her or had moved on. Or worse, retreated back into that loneliness that he'd worn like a cloak throughout his adult life.

Which reminded her... "What were your nicknames when you were a kid? I've been curious ever since your first email. It's not like your first name lends itself to one."

He cleared his throat. "Most of them aren't repeatable in polite company."

He'd been called names, she realized. Bullied. "Did you have...many friends?" she ventured, trying to be gentle about it.

"No. Pete was my only one, really, though Lana stuck up for me, too. Mostly on principle, I think." She could clearly hear the smile in her voice when he added, "But I always had my dogs."

It was so...human that she smiled in response. Jonathan going back for the family dog suddenly made more sense to her, too. It wasn't a smart choice, obviously, but the dog had been Clark's best friend.

"You?" he asked.

"I ran with the smart crowd in high school, but I never made any close friends there. Or in college, really. Several of the people I counted as friends at university are working for the competition now."

"Boyfriends?" he said, so quietly she almost didn't hear him.

"Occasionally," she admitted. "None of them put up with me for very long. You?"

"Nope, no boyfriends," he answered, though she could hear the smirk in his voice.

She teasingly smacked his ribs with one of her hands. "You know what I meant. Have you dated much?"

"No."

The way he said it gave her a sudden suspicion and she looked up at him. "Was I your first kiss?"

He stared determinedly at the mouth of the alley. "Does it matter?"

_Yes!_ Lois wanted to shout. That he'd been _that_ alone, cared about her _that _much, _trusted _her that much was monumental, but she also recognized embarrassment when she saw it. Instead she playfully asked, "Was it worth the wait?"

He glanced down at her, a smile slowly lighting his face. "Yes."

Unable to help herself, Lois stood up on her tiptoes and pressed her lips to his. He cupped his hands around her head and earnestly returned her kiss, but she yelped and leaned back. He let her go, but she could see the worry in his eyes. In explanation, she traced the stubble just above his lip with her fingertip. "It tickles."

His shoulders shook with quiet laughter, and he rested his forehead against hers. "I'll find a different disguise before I come visit you again, I promise."

The dual promise, to shave _and_ to come back to see her, made her heart soar. Risking getting tickled again, she lightly kissed him. "I'm going to hold you to that. Somehow."

He didn't answer, just rested his hands on her face and traced his thumbs over her cheekbones.

Lois closed her eyes, savoring his touch, until another question popped into her mind. "How _do _you shave, anyway?" she suddenly demanded, looking up at him.

"What's with all the questions?" he retorted. Glancing up at the mouth of the alley, he said, "It's been fifteen minutes. I think we're safe to slip away."

"To where?" Lois asked, almost annoyed with herself for not wondering sooner. Both her apartment and office were bugged, so neither of them were an option.

"Well," he hedged, "it's fairly late. Are you hungry?"

"Are you asking me out to dinner?" Somehow, she couldn't quite wrap her mind around something so...casual with him. After flying in an alien spaceship, meeting his dad's ghost, creating an astrophysical singularity (which wasn't _quite _the same as a black hole according to Dr. Hamilton), saving the world, and seeing him actually kill another living being, dinner was almost surreal.

He shrugged. "Yeah?"

"On a _date_?" she pressed.

He was at a loss for words and her heart warmed. "Our first date."

Canting his head, he gave her a small smile. "Unless you count saving the world as a date."

"Naw," she lightly answered, stepping away to loop her arm through his. "Too many interruptions."

Clark - Woot - walked with her close to the wall to shelter her a little from the rain until they returned to where she'd dropped her umbrella a few feet away from the mouth of the alley. Scooping it up, he shook it out (it had landed upside down) and held it over the two of them.

"So you didn't answer my question," she pointedly said as they strolled down the sidewalk.

He glanced sidelong at her, and she could swear she saw a mischievous light in his eyes. "No. I didn't."

"So...?"

"So what?"

Incredulously she glared at him. "You're seriously not going to tell me how you shave?"

He fought a smile, and his expression was so endearing that Lois forgave him despite how exasperating he was being.

"I have to maintain a _little _mystique."

"Cl...Woot, I hardly think you need to worry about that."

He shrugged and changed the subject. "Which restaurants have you been to around here?"

Lois looked up, trying to get her bearings, and admitted, "None, really. I'm usually too busy thinking when I take this route home."

"Good," he answered, though he seemed more satisfied than impish this time.

"Good?"

"If we go to one of your regular places, there's an outside chance that it'll be watched."

_Right_, Lois thought. Because even casual contact held danger for him. For them both, really.

"What are you in the mood for?" he wondered.

She tilted her head up to give him an impish smile of her own. "Surprise me."

His 'surprise' was pretty tame - they turned the corner and walked another block and a half to find an all-night diner. "This okay?" he asked.

"Sure."

When they entered, the host greeted them with, "Welcome. Table for two?"

"Yes," Clark answered.

"Table or booth?" the host asked, and Clark looked to Lois, a question in his eyes. It was a small gesture, but Lois appreciated it immediately. Most men would have just answered without asking her opinion. It didn't really matter to her one way or the other, but the fact that he would wait for her answer spoke volumes.

Actually, it suddenly _did _matter to her. "Booth, please. A quiet one."

The host nodded and led them to a window-seat booth that was at least two tables from anyone else. Lois started to shrug off her raincoat, but Clark said, "May I?"

Looking at him curiously, she realized that he was offering to help her out of her coat. At most a tenth of the guys she'd dated would have recognized that it was a polite thing to do, and only one other had ever offered. They hadn't even ordered yet, and he was knocking her socks off.

"Um, sure," she said, turning slightly so that her back was to him. He gently brushed her hair around her shoulder so he could reach the collar of her coat, and she studiously ignored the fact that her heart reacted to his warm touch on the back of her neck. Then he was lifting the coat off her shoulders and hanging it on the hook beside their booth. He gestured that she should sit down and shrugged out of his own coat before taking a seat himself.

"Can I get you started with something?" the host asked.

Again, Clark deferred to her and Lois answered, "Just water for me, thanks."

While he ordered his drink (iced tea, oddly enough, probably because it didn't have any food coloring) and the host handed them their menus, she reflected on Clark's odd combination of old-fashioned manners and modern sensibilities when it came to respect. He wasn't just a gentleman, he was a perfect one. _Of course Superman would also be a super date_, Lois thought to herself with a smirk.

"What?" he asked when he saw her expression.

"Nothing," she said. Clark wasn't the only one who could be annoying about not answering questions.

As soon as the host was gone, Lois scooted out of her bench and slid around the table to sit next to Clark - her purpose in requesting a booth to begin with. It had been _months _since she'd seen him last, and she wasn't about to let a table stand between them.

"This okay?" she asked as he turned slightly, adjusting his position to face her a little more.

"Um...yeah," he answered, sounding a little stunned. "Definitely okay."

Grinning, she shifted a little closer and then opened her menu. A club sandwich sounded really good to her, and she flipped through the pages to see if the place made them, but when she came across the seafood section, another question occurred to her. Leaning closer to Clark, she asked, "Do you have any food allergies or intolerances?"

"No. Why?"

"Doesn't that seem a little odd to you? I mean...well, you give new meaning to the phrase 'foreign food.' It never struck you as strange that you could eat anything anyone else could?"

He raised an eyebrow at her. "I wonder about a lot of things, Lois. That's pretty low on the list."

She nodded her head, acknowledging he had a point.


	4. Words

Author's Note: Thank you so much to everyone who has reviewed, favorited, or is following this fic! Especially since I'm new to the fandom, I've been blown away by the response. :)

* * *

By the time the waitress arrived with their drinks, they had already decided on their orders. As she'd suspected, Clark had an appetite that would rival Michael Phelps. He ordered the diner's largest steak, a full-size soup, a dinner salad, bread sticks, and a baked potato.

"So," he said after their waitress left, "are you done with your interrogation?"

Lois looked at him and was relieved to see the teasing twinkle in his eyes. "Well, you know. Reporter. The day I run out of questions is the day I hang up my pen."

He leaned back and pulled a scrap of paper out of his shirt pocket. A newspaper clipping, Lois realized, as he unfolded it and spread it flat on the table. Her eyebrows rose when she saw that the byline said "Clark Kent."

"The Smallville Ledger published it a few weeks back," he explained, avoiding her gaze by looking down at the page. "I wrote it after the work in Metropolis shifted from rescue to recovery. It was...cathartic to put it all out on paper like that. Mom found it and suggested that I submit it to the paper. So I edited out the incriminating parts and they printed it." He slid the paper closer to her and asked, "What do you think?"

She was honestly impressed as she read it. It was more op ed than investigative reporting, but his prose reflected his quiet strength. That in and of itself was remarkable. Being a deep thinker and being able to effectively convey that weren't necessarily the same thing. "This is really good," she said, looking back up at him.

He smiled ever so slightly. "You say that as my friend. Will you read it now as Lois Lane, world-class reporter?"

She shook her head, saying, "Woot, don't do that to me."

"Is it that bad?"

"No," she insisted. "It's just...There's a reason I only dated one guy in the journalism program at university. I'm a little too honest sometimes. It works well for the news, not so much for personal relationships."

"Please, Lois," he earnestly said. With just a hint of playful arrogance, he added in a lower voice, "I'm tough enough to handle it."

_Yes,_ she thought, _but are __**we**__? _There was no way she could deny him though, not when he straight-up asked her like that. "Okay," she agreed. "But here are the ground rules. I'm not actually judging your work and I'm not commenting on you as a person or anything. I'm doing this as a peer edit, got it? Just like in college."

"I never went to college," he quietly admitted, dropping his gaze again.

When he looked back up a moment later, Lois realized she was staring slack-jawed and closed her mouth. "That article incorporates ideas from Plato, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Winston Churchill," she blurted out. "It's at least the quality writing you'd see in third-year coursework at a university. A _good_ university."

A genuine grin spread over his face.

"Tell me you graduated high school, at least," she pleaded.

"Yes, I did that," he allowed, his grin fading to something more contemplative. "I could have gone to college. I had scholarships lined up, but Dad died a couple of months before I graduated. I couldn't just leave Mom." He looked down again and murmured, "Not when it was my fault."

Lois placed her hand over his and waited for him to lift his gaze to hers. "It wasn't."

"It _was_," he insisted, his eyes burning with the kind of intensity she'd already started to associate with the Superman side of him. "But I've made peace with that." He avoided her gaze again. "I worked the farm for another five years, until Mom was herself again and we could find some people who could help her out. Emmie Nobels, one of Mom's cousins, was willing to come work the farm for a share in the operation and I was able to leave then. She and her husband have a house on the other side of the road from us."

"And you didn't try to go to college then?"

He shook his head 'no.' "I realized that what I wanted to learn couldn't be found in a textbook."

Lois again pointed to the article. "Then where did all this come from?"

He gave her a self-deprecating smile. "I'm pretty well-read." He hesitated for a moment and then leaned in close to speak in her ear. "When I learned I wasn't born human, I tried to find out what it meant to _be _human."

"Trying to fit in?" she whispered.

"I think it was more that I was trying to understand what I was and what I wasn't." Leaning back again, he said, "I read up on everything from philosophy to politics to religion to medicine."

"So five years after high school, that's when you started drifting?"

"Yeah," he answered, a sad smile twitching across his face.

"You've been alone for _ten years_?"

The look he gave her was answer enough - he'd been alone a lot longer than that.

The compassion that filled her heart was a powerful echo of what she'd felt for him that day beside Zod's body, but she thought she understood better now what killing his own people must have cost him.

His words echoed in her memory_... "I had to choose between the people of my birth and the people of my home..."_

Earth was Clark's home because he'd _made _it his. He had studied and grappled with human nature and probably understood better what it meant to be human than any mere human could. Looking again at the newspaper clipping, she felt that same desire to protect him, but it morphed into a new shape. The world couldn't know his story, but they could know _him_. The words in front of her were proof enough of his innate talent. Humanity might not listen to what he could tell them if they didn't know who he was, but at least the words would be out there, and maybe the words themselves would move people. Words were powerful - she knew that better than anyone else.

"I'll make you a deal, Woot," she said, sitting up straighter. "I'll help you polish this up on one condition. When I'm done, submit it to my editor."

This time Clark was the slack-jawed one, and Lois was the one with a glint of determination in her eyes.

"Lois..." he finally said, "I don't think..."

"Well I do," she cut him off. "And who's the one with the Pulitzer prize?"

He half-laughed, saw she was dead serious, and then dropped his head back to quietly, genuinely laugh. If anyone else had treated her that way after an offer like that, Lois would have been deeply offended. He was _laughing_, though, and she couldn't begrudge him that.

His head lolled forward and his eyes were alight with happiness. "Ms. Lane, I believe we have a deal."

She extended her hand and they shook on it, and she grinned as widely as him.

Their meal arrived then, and as they ate, they went over every word of his story. Lois was gentler with him than she had been with any other peer edit, pointing out and praising what he'd done well. She also took the time to explain some of the journalism jargon and strategies for articles. The handful of times she saw a problematic turn of phrase or poor segue, she offered two or three suggestions for improvement so he could choose the one that suited him best. She also pointed out a few places where he could expand his writing for clarity or depth.

By the time Clark had eaten his way through the three-course meal he'd ordered, Lois was quite pleased with the results of their efforts. Granted, Clark was a no-name to Perry, but she had confidence that her editor would recognize quality work when he saw it.

When the waitress came to refill their drinks, she asked if they wanted anything for dessert. "Lois?" Clark asked her.

"I'm fine, thanks. Stuffed, really."

He leaned closer and said, "I'd like some dessert, so why don't I order one you like, too, and we can share?"

It was ridiculous, really, how quickly his suggestion sent her spinning from professional intellectual to fawning fangirl. After all, people didn't share desserts with just anyone. The professional tisked at her in the back of her mind. Lois ignored her. "Something chocolate, then."

"Chocolate cake," he told the waitress.

Trying to salvage what she could of her pride, Lois gestured at the marked-up newspaper clipping and said, "If you're serious about this, I can email you a list of some books you might find helpful."

"Wouldn't _that _drive your stalkers crazy," he said, though there was a hint of something more serious behind his joke.

Lois grinned conspiratorially in response. "I could throw in some random page numbers to really freak them out, make them think it's some kind of code."

Clark's smile was genuine this time. "If you're going to do that, add a few books that are completely off topic. And page numbers, of course. Maybe page 212 in a 100-page book?"

"We're going to have entirely too much fun with this," Lois chuckled.

"The game is afoot," he couldn't help adding, his eyes bright with humor.

Lois recognized the quote and said, "You know, I wanted to be a detective after reading Sherlock Holmes. Well, I wanted to be a writer until I read Sherlock Holmes and then I wanted to be a detective."

"And that's why you became an investigative reporter?" Clark guessed.

She nodded. "It was a happy marriage of the two."

After dessert, they headed back out into the damp, chilly night. This time, though, Lois held his hand instead of walking arm-in-arm.

"So what are you doing with yourself these days?" she wondered.

"Mostly trying to make the house livable again for Mom," he answered. "Zod threw a pick-up through the roof. The insurance wouldn't cover it because they say it was an act of terrorism or war, and I'm sure you can understand why we're reluctant to apply for FEMA assistance."

"Oh." Lois hadn't even realized his own home had been damaged and, worse, she'd never thought to ask. The Planet had sent a couple of rookies to cover Smallville, but she hadn't dared to go herself. She'd covered the story whenever Superman showed up (and he did from time to time, popping up to rescue miners trapped underground in China, evacuate the injured in isolated villages after an earthquake in India, and even help contain a wildfire in Colorado, among other appearances), but it saddened her that she'd lost track of Clark.

And if he was spending all his money fixing up the house...She glanced back toward the diner; he'd insisted on picking up the tab, though he didn't fight her when she insisted on paying the tip. Was it because he was broke?

She glanced back up at him, and Clark gave her a slightly exasperated look. He'd caught her. "Corn sold high this year. Money's not a problem right now. Mom and I have been staying with her cousin Emmie so we haven't even had a rent payment."

"Ah. So...you went back to normal? Just like that?"

"Well, back to _my_ normal. Mostly." Leaning closer, he said in a low voice, "I still fly whenever I can. That's just addictive."

Lois grinned. "Since my experiences with flying weren't exactly recreational, I'll take your word for it."

"I need to remedy that one of these days," he said, and despite herself, Lois' heart soared again.

"Where do you go?"

"Sometimes nowhere in particular. I end up over Metropolis quite a bit, though."

"Because you feel responsible?"

"That's part of it," he admitted.

"You aren't, you know?" She looked up at him, her own guilt bubbling to the fore. She'd never spoken to anyone else about her epiphany, but she felt compelled to tell him now, to make sure he knew he didn't need to shoulder this, too. "It's my fault."

He stopped mid-stride and turned to face her. "Lois, how can you even say that?"

"Why do you think he chose Metropolis, _my _home?"

His mouth opened, but whatever he was going to say died on his tongue.

"They got into my head, too. He had enough hatred to spread between the both of us."

Clark sighed, hard, and squeezed her hand just a little tighter. He seemed to struggle with what to say next, until he finally murmured, "I'm so sorry."

"Me, too. And I'm sorry that you had to choose, that you had to kill him after being alone for so long."

He searched her eyes, and whatever he found there made his expression soften. Releasing her hand, he reached up to cup her cheek. "You still believe in me," he said, the words tinged with wonder.

"Of course," she answered simply. "You believed in me - trusted me - first. You still do, or you wouldn't be here asking me to critique your writing."

He sighed and looked away, his hand falling to his side again. "Even after what happened at the subway station...I'm sorry you saw that."

"I've seen soldiers' limbs blown off while I was an embedded journalist," she flatly said. "I've seen corpses with bullets through their brains. His death was quicker and cleaner than he deserved."

"I didn't mean that," he softly said, his gaze darting to hers and away again. "I meant afterward."

She wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his neck. "Don't ever apologize for that."

"You believed in me and I..."

"I never believed in you more than in that moment." As she said the words, she finally understood why his breakdown had moved her so much. "It meant that you were human. Touchable."

She felt him slouch like she'd knocked the wind out of him, but he clung to her again with the arm that wasn't holding the umbrella.

"Don't apologize. Ever. Like you said, you chose humanity. You had to sacrifice half of yourself to do it, but you did. Pain isn't weakness any more than caring is. But it _is _human."

He pulled her even more tightly against him. "I'm glad you're my friend, Lois," he murmured in her ear.

Rather than being put off by the word, she felt the power of what it meant to him. Thirty-three years of hiding, of loneliness she couldn't comprehend, and he let her into his life. His friend.

"I'm glad I am, too," she answered. "And I flatter myself that I can count you as _my _friend."

"Without question," he fervently said.

Lois knew she should let him go now - step back, take his hand, let him walk her the rest of the way home. But he was warm and he was _here _and she didn't know when she'd be able to just hold him like this again. It was like they'd gone back in time two months to that agonizingly honest and open moment, but without the raw pain and grief. Those were buried deep in Clark's heart now (and in her own, she admitted to herself), but the way he held her told her he still needed her. He was still vulnerable, and she would still protect him.


	5. Script

She wasn't sure how long she spent in his arms until she shivered against the damp chill, breaking the spell. When she immediately yawned, too, she knew the moment was over.

"I should get you home."

Accepting defeat, she lifted her head and stepped away. The hand that held her slid across her back to catch her own hand again. Apparently that was the new normal between them, and Lois decided she could _definitely _live with that.

They strolled for three whole blocks before her head cleared enough for her to think of another question.

"_Disgusting_ bugs?"

He grimaced, jaw clenching before he relaxed into a frustrated sigh. "They have one in your bathroom."

She'd known they were in her apartment _somewhere_, but the sense of violation and the accompanying wave of nausea surprised her.

"It's just an eavesdropping device, not a camera," he quickly added, "or I would have destroyed it already. But still, every square inch of your apartment is being monitored. There are cameras and bugs in your bedroom, your spare bedroom, your kitchen, your living room, even your closets. There are some just above your door in the main hall, on your balcony, and another one just above your balcony and flush with the exterior of the building."

Lois let out a low whistle of surprise. She hadn't realized until now just how thoroughly she was being watched. "And the Planet?" she asked, a little overwhelmed.

"Much less intense there, just a bug in the hutch on your desk. I think they didn't dare do anything more than that. The Daily Planet has much better security than your apartment building. Unless, of course, they've somehow tapped the building's own security feed."

She sighed in frustration at the the thought.

"I'm so sorry," he apologized again. "I should have just destroyed them when I found them."

"No," she insisted. "You did the right thing. If you'd done that, they would have known you were visiting me, and they would have upped their game."

"I should have at least told you sooner."

"You _did _warn me," she pointed out.

"Not well enough."

"Hey!" she interrupted him, baffled that he was insisting on beating himself up over this. "What part of 'worth it' do you not understand?"

"The part where it's okay," he sternly answered, stopping and turning to face her. "Lois...it's not acceptable, it never was and never will be. You're just willing to put up with something that's unacceptable because..."

Clark abruptly cut off and he bowed his head.

"Because you are worth it," she said, finishing his sentence.

He twitched his head 'no' and it finally clicked for Lois. _He _didn't think he was worth it. Placing her hands on his rough face, she tipped it up until he was looking at her again. "Because I care about you," she softly amended.

His face was still trapped by her hands, so he couldn't look away. Instead he closed his eyes. "And when you starting caring more about your privacy and sanity, which you _should_..."

"Listen you," she said in a firm voice. "I haven't let anyone tell me what I _should_ do since I was fifteen. I'm not going start again now, not even with you."

He opened his eyes, and the surprise in them faded into something almost contrite.

Seeing that she had his attention now, she pressed her point. "If our places were reversed, would you value your privacy more than staying in contact with me?"

"Lois, it's not the same..."

"Would you?" she demanded.

"No."

"Then don't think so little of me."

She watched as her words sank in, as he realized she could have taken offense, and then he anxiously searched her eyes again.

"You're right, it's not okay," she reassured him, "but you, your secret, your presence in my life are all worth it. Sooner or later they're going to give up. They're already starting to - we saw that tonight."

He nodded and, dodging her gaze again, whispered, "I know. But I _hate _feeling powerless."

"I can only imagine," she answered with a faint smile. "It's bad enough for us mere mortals." She suddenly remembered the email she'd promised him and actually laughed. "But if that's the problem, want to help me plan some guerilla warfare?"

"That depends," he deadpanned, "which country are you taking over?"

Chuckling, she took his hand again and started walking. "What do you think is the worst chick flick of all time?"

Confused by her sudden change in mood, he asked, "Are you interrogating me again?"

"Never mind. I'll sound out Sam on the Entertainment beat. By the time I'm done with them, whoever is watching my living room is going to be so sick of cheesy 80's movies and... I don't know...polka music."

He choked on a laugh and she grinned up at him. "Preferably played simultaneously."

"For hours on end while you're at work," he surmised.

"Maybe I should start hosting seances or something, too. Or get a 1950's housecoat and provocatively walk around with my hair in curlers."

"They'd probably start to suspect something, Lois," he pointed out, though that sparkle was back in his eyes. "They'll start tailing you again,"

"Yeah, you're right. I'll need to get some incense and burn it first so they'll think I'm high. Ooh! Or throw some parsley in a brownie mix so whoever's watching my kitchen will think they're laced."

He let go of her hand and turned so that he was walking backward facing her. "What?" she asked as he stared intently at her.

With just a hint of a playful smirk, he said, "I'm trying to see if someone spiked your drink somehow."

"It was water," she pointed out, "so unless you're in the habit of turning water to wine..."

He rolled his eyes and turned around again, taking her hand and falling in step beside her.

Lois had the distinct feeling that she was the only person (with the possible exception of his parents) who had seen him roll his eyes, and she grinned at the rush it gave her. "So, Mr. I-Hate-Feeling-Powerless, how do you want to help me mess with their minds? Because sending secret coded messages in emails about the Chicago Style Guide is only the beginning."

"Hm...what part do you want me to play in your script? I could keep on writing as if there's nothing wrong, I could be the concerned friend worried about your descent into madness, or I could send responses as bizarre as what you send me."

"Or you could be the concerned friend who writes about disgusting bugs," she pointed out.

He nodded in agreement. "But don't start going too crazy all at once. If they figure out that you took an extra hour and a half getting home, they'll start to suspect something."

She sighed. "Yeah, you're right."

They turned the corner and he slowed his pace, looking ahead. Lois glanced up at him and then followed his gaze. They were within sight of the subway station she'd enter if she were taking it home tonight. "They have security cameras," he said, frowning slightly. At her curious expression, he added, "I'm in the habit of checking everywhere I go now."

She brushed her fingertips over his rough cheek. "You're in disguise."

"But _you _aren't."

There was a finality to his words, like a splash of cold water. Tonight was a chimera, an impossible thing as terrible as it was amazing. Superman would always be a target now, and she, the nosy reporter who followed a story too far, would always be in the bulls-eye. There was no room for Clark and Lois in their world. They might be able to steal an hour or two here or there, maybe a few times a year, but that would be it. She hated how desperate that knowledge made her feel.

"Are there any cameras on the trains themselves?" she wondered.

He got a faraway look for a moment and then answered, "No."

"Then we go in separately, a few minutes apart. We'll board the same train and we'll be set."

He sighed, and she hoped she didn't imagine the hint of desperation in the sound. "I'll go in first." Giving her the umbrella and a rueful smile, he said, "Try not to get mugged or anything while I'm gone."

"Already met my quota for the night," she assured him with the best answering smile she could manage.

It was hard - far harder than she expected - to watch him walk away from her. She obsessively checked her watch until four minutes had passed and then she approached the station. Acting for the cameras, she tried to look around for him without being obvious about it. To her amusement, he was just opening a bag of chips he'd bought out of a vending machine. How could he _possibly _be hungry still?

With a lighter heart, she bought her ticket and went to stand on the platform. He ambled over a couple of minutes before the train was due to arrive and stood just out of her reach to her left. She dared to glance at his face, but it was a quiet, calm mask. Just another person minding his own business. Just an alien blending in.

The train pulled up and he followed her into the car. A group of twenty-somethings were at the front of it, laughing loudly, so Lois walked toward the rear. Clark slid into the seat beside her as the train pulled forward.

Feeling reality creeping closer, she leaned over and whispered in his ear everything her source at the Department of Homeland Security had told her about the drone program. "You come first," she told him, "but this is an important story."

"I trust your judgment," he gravely answered. "Though if they ease up with the drone program, the focus will probably shift back to you."

She shrugged. "Any story worth telling is going to involve a certain amount of risk."

He gave her an incredulous look and she asked, "What?"

Clark just shook his head and looked out the window, but he did place his hand over hers where it rested on the bench. They didn't say anything else for the rest of the trip. When the station by her home drew near, she pulled her hand out from under his but couldn't quite let him go just yet. "Hungry still?" she asked him in a low voice.

"Why?" he warily replied.

Lois noted that he didn't deny it and briefly wondered if the Kents had to mortgage the farm to feed him when he was a teenager. "Get off at this station and go buy a candy bar or something. I'll wait for you just around the corner on the first block to the north."

He nodded, giving her a hint of a smile before that calm mask of an expression settled over his face. Standing, he walked toward the door of the still-moving train. When it stopped, he strode out without a backward glance.

Lois made her way back out into the night, slowly strolling toward the corner where she'd promised to meet him. When she was just a few feet away from the intersection, a gust of wind rushed past her, tugging at her umbrella, and she grinned despite herself. He had beat her there. It was the first time this entire evening that he'd let her actually see him use his powers, and it cheered her up more than she'd thought possible. Tonight was an impossibility, but so was a man flew, who ran so fast she couldn't see him, who walked through fire unscathed. Clark and Lois as a couple were an impossibility, but his little display right now reminded her that, if anyone could find a way to make this work, he could. _They _could.

When she rounded the corner, he was there, leaning against the wall. "In a hurry?" she playfully asked as she reached for his hand.

"Well, it's rude to keep a lady waiting," he answered, much more somber than she was. He did twine his fingers with hers, though, and held his hand out in an offer to carry the umbrella.

She wordlessly gave it to him and he stepped away from the wall, walking with her hand-in-hand again. "And you've already..." He huffed a sigh.

"You're worth the wait, too," she said, guessing what was bothering him.

Dodging her gaze, he said, "If...I can't make any promises, but if the opportunity comes up, would you...want to do this again?"

"Get mugged by a hero?" Lois couldn't help teasing. "What reporter could resist _that_?"

He grimaced. "Well, when you put it that way..."

"Of course, it was more of a kidnapping than a mugging," she quickly pointed out. "You never stole anything from me." Any comments about stolen hearts were far beneath her dignity. Or, at least, that's what she told herself.

He raised an eyebrow at her. "And that's better than a mugging?"

"Much. I got dinner out of the deal."

A smile flitted across his face. "I'll keep that in mind."

Another block brought them within sight of her apartment building, and again Clark slowed to a stop. "The bug on the outside of your apartment...if we turn this corner, we'll be in line-of-sight, and I have no idea what kind of range or resolution it has."

She nodded, disappointed but understanding. "Better play it safe, then."

They stood there for a long moment, neither one willing to say goodnight - goodbye - when there were so many other uncertainties in their lives. The weight of that uncertainty pressed down on Lois' heart until she again remembered him sprinting past her this evening faster than sight. She believed in _him_, and he would find a way. Arming herself with that confidence, she held out her hand for him to return the umbrella. He gave it back but dodged her gaze again. "Go ahead. I'll wait here and make sure you get back to your apartment okay."

_Where somebody else can keep a spying eye on me_, she mentally added. But seeing him so downcast, she couldn't let the night end like that. "Aren't you forgetting something?"

Clark glanced up at her curiously, and she leaned closer. It was supposed to be a light, goodnight peck on the lips, but when she was close enough to feel the warmth rising off his skin, his breath caught. It was such a simple thing, but her intentions pivoted around it, and when her lips lightly brushed against his, the kiss she gave him was much more serious than even she'd expected.

He froze for a heartbeat in surprise (or worry that he would tickle her again in the most unromantic way possible) and then rested his hands on her hips. Soft and slow, matching her breath for breath, he kissed her until Lois was sure she'd melt into a puddle on the sidewalk if he weren't steadying her.

When he leaned back, Lois' eyes fluttered open and he looked every bit as shell-shocked as during their first kiss. Swallowing hard, he closed his eyes and struggled for a moment to focus. She fleetingly wondered if she was really that good or if his super tactile senses were running away with him.

Curiosity got the better of her, and she brushed her fingertips over his rough cheek. Clark's breath caught again, and she pressed her hand to his face, far more pleased than she should be to see him so...vulnerable. At that thought, a ripple of guilt swept through her and she let her hand fall away from him. "Good night, Cl...Woot."

He slowly opened his eyes as she stepped away and she just couldn't resist. "Unless, of course, you want to tell me how you shave."

His attention finally focused on her and she smirked.

"Good night, Lois," he pointedly said, his frown ruined by the warmth in his eyes.

Taking his hand one last time, she squeezed it and then let her fingers slip away from him. Turning, she continued on to her apartment, sure that she only imagined the weight of his watchful gaze.


	6. Season's Greetings

Lois stalked through the heavy December fog feeling more disappointed with every step. She'd been out shopping _all evening _and hadn't seen hide nor hair of Clark. He hadn't said he'd be there, of course, so she didn't have any right to be annoyed, but that knowledge didn't help.

It was a _perfect _night for him to mug her again. When the thick fog rolled in, she'd even left work early after making an excuse to Perry about needing to do some Christmas shopping. Now she was just a block from home with only a couple of bags - containing gift-wrapped presents for her parents and sister - to show for it. It would have been the perfect cover for him, too. It wasn't that she'd lost faith in him, not at all. He'd promised to come back, and he would. She was just eager to see him again, and she was pretty sure nobody would blame her for that, least of all Clark.

Despite herself, she glanced down every darkened alley she passed, though she couldn't see more than a few yards in the haze. But now, within sight of her apartment building, she was resigned to going home to yet another night of acting for the cameras.

She'd already done the laced brownies. The parsley hadn't been as nasty as she'd feared, though the end result _was _pretty bad. She was two bites into the first one when it occurred to her that she should have found some dried mint leaves or something and used that instead.

Worrying about what they'd hear if she talked in her sleep, she'd snuck onto Lombard's computer when he'd left it unlocked during a coffee break one day and searched IMDB for every movie starring a character named Clark. None of the characters listed really met her requirements until she stumbled across a 4-hour documentary titled _Lewis and Clark_. With a name like that, it was just too good to resist. From her own computer, she ordered the video series with one-day shipping and, once it arrived, curled up with a blanket and a bag of popcorn every night for the rest of the week to watch it. It had become habit now when she got home to turn off _Flashdance _or the documentary about Willie Nelson and put on one of the Lewis and Clark DVD's to keep her company.

Once she was sure any nocturnal mumblings about Clark could be attributed to something other than a certain farm-boy from Kansas, she'd pulled her best writing references and journalism textbooks off her shelves, along with her Sherlock Holmes collection, two cookbooks, and a Bible that had been collecting dust ever since a friend in college had given it to her. She had made a good show of carefully thumbing through each one, jotting down page numbers, and then drafting the email to Woot. She provided Amazon links to each one, along with the page numbers and a single cryptic word after each entry. As an afterthought, she included a link to the Lewis and Clark documentary, hoping he'd get a kick out of it, too, and wrote down a timestamp for the third disk. She was pretty pleased with herself by the time she went to bed. Hopefully the people on the other end of those spy cameras would be wasting days or even weeks of their lives trying to crack a code that didn't exist.

She'd been even more pleased by the reply from him that she found in her inbox the next morning. "Thanks for the recommendations, Lois. The Weight Watchers cookbook was getting old, especially, the coleslaw (pg. 22). Considering the historical inaccuracies in _A Study in Scarlet_, I think you'll find Nancy Drew a more enjoyable read than Sherlock Holmes. Check out the climax of "The Bungalow Mystery" to see what I mean. Also, I seem to be missing the _Chicago Manual of Style _and I doubt I'll be able to find another copy. In the meantime, though, what do you think of _Fly Fishing for Dummies_? And for the record, my mom will adore that Lewis and Clark set, too. Work is keeping me hopping still, and my brothers and sisters are all able to make it home for Thanksgiving this year, so I'm afraid I'll need to back out of our initial plans. Let me know when you'll have another break between stories so we can spend a few days together again. Miss you. - Woot"

They had exchanged emails like that once every week or so, tossing mundane and bizarre in with plausible lies and outright truths until it was all Lois could do to not giggle when she read them. Still, it wasn't the same as actually having him within reach.

The closest she'd come to that was a month ago when Perry had run Clark's piece. It gave her a sense of conspiratorial pleasure to know that his name and hers were put to press together in the same edition.

After being stood up by Clark tonight (though in the back of her mind she knew that was being unfair to him), Lois was in the mood to do something particularly cruel to the spies who were keeping him away from her. She fished her phone out of her purse to check the time, wondering what kind of timeframe she had to work with as she wrought her revenge. It was barely seven o'clock, plenty of time to figure out something worse than 25 days of _It's a Wonderful Life _playing on repeat while she was at work. Slipping the phone back into her pocket, she slowed her pace slightly, trying to think. Thumbing through the Sherlock Holmes stories had given her the idea of indoor target practice in her living room but she'd never acted on it. If she just happened to hit one of those bugs while shooting, then all the better. Firearms were out of the question, obviously, but bows and arrows _had _to be easier to come by.

Someone grabbed her from behind, a hand clamping over her mouth, and after a knee-jerk struggle, she all but slumped in relief. She couldn't get her feet under her because _his _feet weren't touching the ground, either. And when his solid body pinned her against a door again, she could definitely feel the stronger-than-steel power of his muscles. She also felt his hesitation and smirked under the hand still over her mouth. She'd slid her cell phone into her back pants' pocket a few minutes ago, since she'd already given up on him finding her. To get his hands on it would involve him being a little more forward than she thought he'd be comfortable with. Pointedly clearing her throat, she wriggled an arm free and reached around to retrieve the phone from her pocket. When she held it up for him, he released her and quickly dismantled it to pull out the battery.

Lois spread her arms wide as if she were undergoing a screening at the airport and slowly turned. "Am I clear?"

"You're clear," he answered, subtle humor in his voice. "I checked for bugs before I even touched you."

In the unlit alley, she could barely make out his shape in the fog and reached for him. He caught her hand and guided it to his face. To his smooth cheek, she realized and, grinning, leaned in for a long-overdue kiss. Warmth rushed through her and she wrapped her arms around his neck, holding him close. The brush of his lips over hers was still tentative, exploring, savoring every touch, and she happily breathed him in. _This _was what she'd wanted the first time he kidnapped her, this perfect moment that was half kiss, half embrace and completely and totally _home_. His hands were splayed across her back, pulling her against him, and she smiled as her mouth moved over his.

He leaned back a little, and Lois reluctantly let him go, not wanting to overwhelm him again. Instead, she rested her head against his chest, listening to his quick heartbeat and feeling like the cat that ate the canary. "You know, one of these days I'm going to get mugged for real again and the guy's going to be _really _confused when I turn around and kiss him."

"Again?" he asked in surprise. "How many times have you been mugged?"

"Not counting you? Twice," she said matter-of-factly, though she let her hands drift down from his neck to wrap her arms around his waist under his nice, thick parka. "The first time the guy got away with my purse but nothing else. I took some self-defense courses after that, and the next one didn't get away with anything. But what took you so long tonight?"

"I could ask the same thing," he said, stepping back and letting the hand on her back slide down to catch her hand. "You had already left your office before I arrived and so I came straight here hoping to catch you. I've been waiting for almost two hours."

She laughed at herself, at the fact that she'd overthought this, and squeezed his hand tightly. Almost high on happiness, she willingly followed him when he strolled in the direction of the street again. "Now I'm the rude one, keeping a gentleman waiting."

"I'd make some kind of comment about that not being how it's supposed to work, but somehow I doubt you'd let me get away with it."

"Nope. Not for a second."

He leaned close and his warm breath tickled her ear. "Thank you for that."

"For what?" she asked, puzzled.

"For keeping me in line."

"Well, you know, it's a dirty job," she bravely, playfully said, "but somebody's got to do it."

He hummed a noncommittal sound and then stopped. Bending over, he picked up the bags he'd made her drop. "It doesn't look like anything was damaged," he assured her as he gave them back.

It boggled her mind to realize he'd seen the bags in the thick fog, seen _through _the bags and the wrapping, and then examined the presents closely enough to make sure they were intact. All while she was blind as a bat. "Were you _ever _surprised on Christmas morning?"

"Just between us? No, not since I was nine."

His confidential tone warmed her heart.

"Are you done with your shopping for tonight?" he asked.

"Yeah. Why?"

"If you're not busy, would you mind being kidnapped again? It's close to Christmas, so I completely understand if you already have other plans."

Grinning up at him, she said, "Woot, I can't think of anything I'd rather do tonight than be abducted by an alien."

He softly snorted in amusement and stepped back. "Go ahead and bring those bags home, and I'll wait here for you to come back."

"Okay. I'll hurry," she promised, already striding out toward the street. She stopped suddenly and whirled. "My cell phone. It might be suspicious if I come home without it."

He handed her the pieces, and she wordlessly reassembled her phone and powered it up before continuing on her way.

When Lois got to her apartment, she put the packages on the table with an unexpected sense of satisfaction. Clark knew what was in those presents, while her stalkers didn't have a clue. Ever mindful of the cameras, she grabbed a piece of scratch paper and made a list of people from work who she might reasonably be expected to buy a present for. Hopefully that would be enough of a logical explanation for why she was going out a second time. Then she was out the door again and hurrying back to him.

As soon as she neared the mouth of the alley, she pulled the battery out of her phone again and took several steps into the darkness.

"I'm right here," he assured her, taking her hand.

Her eyes hadn't fully adjusted yet from being indoors, so she pulled him closer, slowly running her hands up his arms to rest on his shoulders. "I'm back, as promised," she breathlessly whispered.

In the dark, she couldn't see his movements, but she felt his shoulders shift and a sudden warmth near her cheek - his face, she realized when she felt his skin brush against hers. Despite herself, she caught her breath, and it reminded her of the last time he'd kidnapped her. The tables were turned now; she was the one who was hyper-aware of his touch, and he was the one who could depend on other senses.

She shakily turned her head, kissing whatever part of him was nearest. His jaw, she realized a second later. She could visualize him now and left a trail of light kisses down to his chin. Then he tipped his face down to meet her, to catch her, and her hands drifted up his neck to run through his hair.

The sound he made then was more hum than moan, but it sent a pang of longing through her heart. Superman needed an ally, and Clark needed a friend, but the man who held her now simply needed _her_. And she needed him.

She broke off the kiss and abruptly stepped back. Where had _that _thought come from? Even if it were true, it was the chimera again, stunning and terrible and utterly, undeniably impossible. The two of them as a couple simply could not exist. She would have a few hours, at most, and then he would be gone again.

"Downhill already?" he asked, his voice carefully neutral.

"Quite the opposite, actually."

"Ah," he said, and she was amazed at how much happiness could be crammed into that single sound.

"So are going out to eat or not?" she impatiently asked, still more upset than she cared to admit.

He caught her hand and walked side-by-side with her out onto the street. "Where would you like to go?"

She considered Chinese, but he'd probably eat a buffet out of business. "What are _you _in the mood for?"

"I chose last time."

They were under a streetlight now, and when she looked up at him she did a double-take. "What's with the hair?" she blurted out. It was a tousled mop that made him look like the Tenth Doctor, but overdue for a haircut.

"It was that or the facial hair," he softly answered with a sheepish shrug. "I slick it back when I'm suited up."

"It's an improvement over the stubble," she allowed, "but..."

"...yes?"

She wasn't quite sure how to tell him he looked awful in it. Not unattractive, exactly, but just...not him. And she couldn't even imagine him with slicked-back hair. It would make him look hardened, and while he was strong, he had also let her in when his heart was utterly broken. He _cared_. Superman with slicked-back hair was just _wrong _somehow.

"It's just...not _you_."

"It's a disguise, Lois. That's kind of the point."

"You shouldn't be the one who has to hide."

"Well, I can change my alter ego only so much. His pictures are plastered all over."

She frowned, frustrated. "You should stay true to your own style, at least."

He raised an eyebrow at her. "What do you think my style is?"

"I don't know. I just don't want you to be swallowed up by the cape. Don't change yourself too much to be _him_."

He gave her a slightly bemused look.

Lois thought about what she knew about him and which styles would fit him best. The Kryptonian clothes were good for the hero side of him, obviously, but who was he when he wasn't in the suit? Country bumpkin? Hardly. Someone who was unafraid to work, even if it meant menial labor. Someone who cared. Someone who was wiser and deeper than even she had guessed. That was it. Smiling, she confidently said, "Studious."

"Studious?"

She nodded briskly. "It's part of who you are that has nothing to do with _him_. And it's something a lot of people who knew you before never would have guessed. If I had to sum up your perfect disguise-style in one word, that's what it would be."

"I'll have to think about that," he said, a hint of smile in his eyes. "So...now that that's settled, what do you want to eat?

"Chinese," she finally admitted. "There's a place one subway stop down from here that I've wanted to try but never had the time." Glancing up at her shaggy Clark, she suggested, "Same battle plan as last time?"

"Ladies first," he countered and she nodded in agreement.


	7. Heritage

Author's Note: Firstly, thank you so much to everyone who has reviewed and added this story to their favorites and follows! Especially being new to the fandom, I'm amazed at the response to this fic.

Secondly, we know precious little about Lady Lara from the movie so I've had to improvise a little in this chapter. I'm a nut for canon, though, and I've based my speculations on things like costuming, resources, characterization of both Lara and Clark, and Jor's expectation that Clark would lead humanity to join him in the sun.

Hope you enjoy!

* * *

With the holiday crowds and the earlier hour, it was all Lois and Clark could do to end up on the same subway car, much less find two seats together. He stood three rows ahead of her and they didn't even make eye contact. Trusting that he'd be able to follow her, she walked purposefully up to street-level and then ambled slowly toward the restaurant. He wouldn't be able to use super-speed to catch up with her this time. When she'd made it less than fifty feet from the station, he fell in step beside her and she looked up at him with a grin. "Fancy meeting you here."

He gave her an answering smile and took her hand.

The restaurant was packed, to the point that there was a fifteen- to twenty-minute wait just to be seated. Clark looked at Lois, silently asking if they wanted to go somewhere else, but she simply gave the host her name and promised to check back in fifteen minutes. Braving the cold, they went back out into the night.

"There's a post office half a block away from here that has a park bench in front of it," he suggested. "Especially in this fog, it's pretty isolated."

She cheekily grinned up at him. "Trying to lure me away?"

He shrugged. "It beats a dark alley."

She laughed out loud at that. "True."

"So," he asked as they walked, "those presents, were they for your family?"

"Yeah," she answered, suddenly realizing she knew far more about his family than he did about hers. "Mom and Dad are divorced and Mom has remarried a man named Joe Carter, but I just get them each one gift and don't worry about significant others. Especially with Dad, they change too often."

"And the other two packages?"

"My kid sister Lucy and her boyfriend. I'll encourage _her _significant other. They've been together for almost five years now and he still hasn't popped the question." She glanced up at him. "What about you? You were alone here, obviously, but do you know...Sorry," she abruptly said.

Clark steered her off the sidewalk and up a private walkway. After a few steps, they were close enough that Lois could see the park bench through the fog.

"Why are you sorry?" he asked as he sat down.

"Because I generally try to use more tact than that," she muttered, taking a seat beside him.

"You met Jor, my father."

She nodded. "His avatar or whatever. Did you have a chance to talk to him while you were on Zod's ship?"

"Only for a minute. But the ship in Canada had similar technology, and I interacted with him quite a bit there. I was an only child in both worlds."

"What about your mother?" Lois suddenly wondered. "Were you able to speak with her, too?"

Clark shook his head 'no.' "She recorded a message for me, but she wasn't a scientist. She didn't have the genetic enhancements necessary to upload her consciousness like he did."

"Genetic enhancements?" she asked, caught somewhere between horrified and fascinated.

A sad smile flitted across his face. "All Kryptonians were genetically engineered to fulfill certain niches in society. The House of El, my father's lineage, had been scientists for centuries and they'd evolved some interesting abilities. One of them was the ability to immerse their consciousness in digital systems. It was originally to speed up research, but my father found other uses for it."

"What about your mother, then? What was she?"

Avoiding her gaze, he answered, "A noble. Lady Lara."

"Like Kryptonian royalty?"

"Not exactly. Their society was ruled by councils. The nobility were...engineered to actually _be _noble. They were social leaders. Moral guides."

Not the nobility that comes from privilege, Lois realized, but the nobility that embodied all the ideals and virtues a society strove for. "And what about you? Can _you _upload your mind onto a jump drive?"

A shy smile twitched across his face. "No. I'm unique. A wildcard. My parents didn't write my genetic code. I was a natural birth, the only one on Krypton at the time. The only one for centuries."

He was extraordinary even among his own kind, and somehow Lois wasn't surprised by that. In fact, it explained a lot about him. His father was brilliant and his mother was nobility incarnate. Even if he wasn't _engineered _to be someone amazing, he'd been predisposed to it from the start. It was small wonder that he was so intelligent and insightful, that he had godlike compassion and surprisingly-human goodness. Jonathan and Martha had raised him well no doubt, but with that kind of heritage, he'd been practically fated to be great. Both nature and nurture conspired to make him the man he was today.

"We'd better head back," he suddenly said, rising to his feet and offering her his hand.

"Why?" she wondered, automatically standing, too.

"The restaurant's seating the group that was ahead of us right now."

"How do you know?"

He glanced at her, vaguely embarrassed. "Sorry, I forget sometimes that you don't know all the things about me that Mom does. She's the only other person I can be myself around. Anyway, I saw the host's roster before we left, and I've been listening as they work their way up the list."

"You remember the list when we were there for all of 15 seconds? And seriously? You can hear that half a block away?"

"I have eidetic memory," he answered, "And I don't usually listen in on conversations that far away for very long because eventually it'll give me a headache, but I didn't want to miss getting a table."

_Of course not. He's probably hungry._ She laughed and rested her head on his arm. "You really are a super date, you know that?"

"Thanks, Lois," he answered, amused. "You're not half-bad yourself."

They had to accept whatever seating was available, and so they ended up at a table this time in the middle of the dining room. Their conversation would have to stick to strictly human topics, and while the reporter in her was a little unhappy about that, Lois was glad for the excuse to focus on _Clark_.

After ordering some hors d'oeuvres and their drinks, Lois asked, "So what have you been up to these days?"

He took a sip of his chai tea before answering. "Got the roof and siding finished a few weeks back and now we're just working on restoring the interior. I talked Mom into updating the kitchen while we were at it, and so now the delay is her thinking and rethinking about every detail." He said it indulgently, and Lois got the distinct impression he didn't mind the delay one bit.

It was almost funny, Lois reflected, that she understood Clark's biological father better than she did his adoptive mother. Jor's avatar had shown some of the emotional strength and focus she'd seen in his son, though admittedly with flair and mannerisms that were alien to Clark.

Martha, however, had been a brick wall. Yes, she remembered the bus accident two decades ago. Yes, Clark had been on the bus at the time. Yes, she remembered Mrs. Helen Ross, the woman who had died of cancer just two years prior. Yes, she remembered Mrs. Ross' statement in the Smallville Ledger that her son survived a school bus accident by the grace of God. No, she didn't fully understand what Mrs. Ross meant by it. No, she wouldn't speculate on it, either. No, she didn't have time for any additional questions because she had to get to work. No, there was not a more-convenient time for Lois to come back.

The Martha Lois knew was hard, tough as nails. She'd attributed it to losing Jonathan in such traumatic circumstances until she learned more about Clark. Now, hearing the affectionate way he spoke about her, Lois realized the brick wall was a fortress she'd painstakingly built to protect him.

"Do you think..." Lois hesitated and then frowned. She couldn't even plan times to meet with Clark. Getting a second chance to talk with his mom would be even harder to arrange.

"Yes?"

"I'm afraid I didn't leave her with the best impression of me."

He genuinely grinned at that. "Don't worry. In fact, she's been concerned about what you think about her. She's afraid she came across as a stubborn old goat."

Lois laughed. "She was butting heads with a stubborn younger goat, and she won. No hard feelings."

"Can I quote you on that, Ms. Lane?" he teased.

"I didn't realize we were speaking on the record," she playfully answered back, leaning closer to him across the table.

"Only if you want it to be," he replied, his eyes sparkling. Then he nervously dodged her gaze. "And speaking of on and off the record...remember our conversation the other day about your story?"

How could she forget? They were upping drone surveillance on him. "Yeah?"

"I'm seeing similar things, too. It's enough to make me want to move."

"Oh, really?" The reporter in her came to the fore.

"I think...I think Metropolis might be a good place for me to relocate to." He finally looked up at her again. "What do you think?"

The fawning fangirl elbowed her way back into the driver's seat. "Um...squeals of joy?"

He quietly laughed and reached across the table to take her hand in his. "I've been searching for something that will let me make that leap. I'll have a couple of interviews after Christmas - I didn't move quickly enough to get in on the seasonal holiday rush."

"So...what kind of work are you looking for?"

He dodged her gaze again, this time in embarrassment. "Anything, really. The interviews are with some contractors who are rebuilding the downtown, but don't be surprised if you see me as a barista in a coffee shop or something."

"Jean's Beans," Lois confidently said. "That's my favorite one, just across from the Daily Planet. Get a job there and I'll be your best customer. Breakfast, coffee breaks, lunch, dinner, after-work pick-me-ups...Please promise me you'd put in lots of overtime."

He looked back up and searched her eyes, and a slow, awestruck smile spread across his face. "You still believe in me."

"Of course. I know what you're capable of. This is just a temporary gig to get you through."

He frowned slightly. "My whole life has been a temporary gig."

"Your life is a string of miracles. The temporary gigs were just ways to get there."

He softly snorted and shook his head.

The hors d'oeuvres arrived, they placed their orders, and Lois let him eat in peace for a few minutes before thinking of another question. "So...are you just in town for dinner tonight?"

"Well..." he hedged, "I've been trying to figure out what to get my mom for Christmas. For the last several years it's just been a gift card because I wasn't around to know what she needed or wanted, but I'd like to do better for her this year. I don't suppose you'd be willing to give me a woman's opinion on a few ideas?"

"I'm even less familiar with her likes and dislikes than you are," Lois pointed out.

"True," he admitted.

If he was trying to hide the fact that he was crestfallen about her less-than-enthusiastic response, Lois mused, he was doing a very poor job of it. "I'm willing to give it a go, though. If nothing else, it'll give me a chance to get to know her better."

The half-smile he gave her convinced Lois that spending another hour or two fighting the holiday crowds would be worth every second.

After dinner, Lois brought him to a shopping district and they wandered from store to store, trying to come up with ideas. Martha liked gardening and generally disliked jewelry (mostly because it was very impractical for a farmer's wife). Her clothes tended to be simple for the same reason, and besides, where would she wear fancy outfits to in Smallville? She had nice copies of all her favorite books, and (in part thanks to Clark's gift cards from the previous years), a pretty decent collection of music and movies. Lois suggested a tablet, but Clark pointed out that they were still using dial-up internet at the farmhouse so it wouldn't be particularly useful for her.

"I see what you mean about it being hard to shop for her," Lois eventually grumbled.

She was walking arm-in-arm with him when they passed a jewelry store and something caught her eye. "In here," she said, eagerly tugging him toward the door.

"Security cameras," he reminded her in a low voice.

She frowned slightly and then said, "Watch me from out here, then, and let me know what you think." Then she slipped away from him.

Martha didn't like jewelry, but Lois suspected she just might make an exception this time. Somebody had capitalized on Superman's popularity and this store had a small collection of rings, pendants, and earrings that featured his iconic S. (In the back of her mind, Lois was disturbed that Clark wouldn't be getting royalties on any of this and, even more frustrating, couldn't even attempt to register it as a trademark. Somebody else was making money off his sacrifice and it annoyed her.)

The store was understaffed, so Lois had a few minutes to look over the collection uninterrupted. Most of it was too gaudy for Martha, even she could see that, but there was one pendant that was a bit more...subtle. Elegant. Martha would think it out of place on her, but Lois decided in that moment that, if Clark wouldn't get it for his mom, she would. Though she wasn't his birth mother, Martha had raised the man who would one day save Earth, and if any woman deserved to wear the Kryptonian symbol for hope, she did.

A salesman eventually found her and Lois asked to see the piece. He handed it to her, and she held it up, giving both herself and Clark a better look. It was simple in design, a silver shield overlaid with a warm gold S and frame. Both the silver and gold were textured much like his suit and the gold was antiqued to highlight the texturing even more.

Lois glanced sidelong at Clark, and he mouthed, "How much?"

She echoed him and the salesman said, "We're having a holiday special, which makes it $249.99."

Again she glanced at Clark and he frowned ever so slightly, uncertainty plain in his eyes. Lois turned to the salesman and declared, "I'll take it."

As she handed over her credit card, it occurred to Lois that her stalkers would be able to track the transaction to this store and to this purchase. She briefly worried about what they might do with that knowledge, but Clark had stayed out of sight and, to keep her own budding paranoia at bay, she pushed that thought to the back of her mind. She'd start second guessing everything if she thought too much about it. When she joined him outside again and pressed the jewelry box into his hands, Clark uneasily shifted his weight. "I only have a couple hundred with me still."

"Let me go in with you on this, then. I really want her to have it. That's officially my female opinion. You asked for it; you'd better follow it."

"I...I was hoping to get something for you, too."

She sighed, surprised by the sudden stinging in her eyes. She couldn't accept a gift from him; her stalkers would notice any new, unexplained addition to her life. Part of her erratic behavior over the last six weeks was to throw them off a little, but an actual gift from him would be too precious to keep in a place as insecure as her apartment. "You gave me tonight," she softly said. "Dinner, a few hours together." It was the chimera, but he'd made it reality twice. Who needed holiday magic when you had the real thing?

He gave her a half-smile. "That was your gift to me," he pointed out, tucking the box away into an inner pocket on his coat.

Looping her arm through his again, and knowing he'd catch the literary reference, she said, "Gift of the Magi, I guess."

With their shopping mission accomplished, they strolled for another hour, talking about their favorite holiday memories and family traditions and bypassing the subway altogether. There were still people out on the street, of course, but the thick fog deepened even more, enfolding them in a curtain of white under the streetlamps.

During a lull in the conversation, he leaned close and in a low voice said, "Did anyone ever tell you the significance of this?"

Lois looked at him, and he tapped the coat pocket where his mother's pendant was hidden.

"Just that it means hope."

"It's...my family crest. This will mean a lot to my mom, to be included in that heritage. I never would have thought to get it for her. Thank you."

Impulsively, she tipped her face up and kissed his cheek. "I'm glad you think she'll like it, too."

He slowed to a stop, and she turned to face him. "What?"

He stepped closer and slowly caressed her cheek, his hand welcomingly warm against her skin. "We should say goodnight here."

Lois swallowed down the lump in her throat, reluctant to see him go but understanding his motives. They had to deliberately avoid any patterns. He couldn't walk her all the way to the corner anymore, or at least, not tonight. In some ways it would be much easier to let him go this time - if he could manage this twice, he could do it again. She had to trust that he would and could, and he gave her every reason to do just that.

_In other ways,_ she thought, reaching up to trace his smooth cheek-bone with her fingertips,_ it's going to be much harder._

Closing his eyes, he turned his head and kissed her hand, and Lois was stunned by the longing that simple gesture inspired. Then taking that hand in his, he quickly led them into an unlit driveway tucked between two buildings.

As soon as she felt they were deep enough into the dark fog, she caught him around the neck and kissed him again, urgent now that their time was almost up. She was feeling unabashedly greedy.

For a split second the world spun, and then her back was against the brick wall that Clark had been leaning on. He pulled away from the kiss, but she was acutely aware that his hands were resting on either side of her against that same wall, boxing her in.

"Lois?" he said, and the intensity behind the word made her catch her breath.

"Yeah?"

"You remember me crushing that robot the first time we met?"

Perplexed, she answered, "Yeah?"

He hesitated and then rested his forehead against hers. "Sometimes you make it really hard for me to focus on little details like pounds per square inch."

Despite herself, she smirked. "Trying to scare me off? Because you _do _know all that does is make me curious."

She could hear the smile in his voice when he pleaded, "Just...help me out here a little, okay?"

Like a bolt of lightning, she realized she'd been moving _way _too fast for him. It wasn't just that he'd never been close to other people emotionally; physical affection was something he would have shied away from, too. No wonder his senses were so easily overwhelmed. It was hard enough for mere humans to not get swept away.

She tipped her face up to his for a light, affectionate kiss. "More manageable?"

"Maybe a little too much," he admitted.

Fighting a grin (and hopelessly losing), she leaned in again and lingered over their kiss. And in the cold, quiet night, curiosity got the better of her, and she tried to imagine what this must feel like for Clark - for Superman - with his heightened senses.

He was so warm; did she feel cold to him? She rested her hands against his chest and leaned closer, truly savoring the texture of his lips moving over hers, the thrill of his quickened breath. He felt solid and strong as he wrapped his arms around her. It made her feel safe, but to him she was small and fragile. Rightfully so. Did holding her make him feel stronger? Or vulnerable?

His hands slid up over her shoulders to catch her face, his fingers laced through her hair. Still his kisses were inviting and she melted a little more under them. Her own breath was quicker now, and she could taste just a hint of sweet-and-sour on his lips. It made her giggle, and he came up for air, asking "What?"

"Super-taste." He was at a loss for words and she realized how ridiculous that sounded. "What's your favorite breath mint?" she breathlessly clarified, because there was no way on Earth or Krypton that she'd let him kiss her after eating garlic bread even if she'd eaten something afterward. Not if merely-human taste buds could notice things like that when they bothered to pay attention.

"Um...?"

"Never mind," she sighed, leaning in again. "Not important." She felt him smile under her lips, and her hands closed over the front of his parka, clinging to this precious, perfect moment, to his happiness, to _him_...and she understood.

It wasn't a matter of focus - of feeling too much - though that was likely part of it; it was a matter of caring too much, of holding too tightly to this impossible thing between them.

"Lois?" he asked, sensing her distraction.

"I think I get it now," she whispered. Experimenting, she let her mouth drift lower, kissing his cheek, the hollow beneath his ear, trailing kisses down his throat. He genuinely moaned this time, but she deliberately kept her touch light and slow. Savor - that was what he needed her to do. _What a chore_, she sarcastically thought. "Better?"

"No complaints yet," he stammered.

His coat was zipped almost all the way up, but she opened it a little, seeking better access.

Abruptly, he tipped his face down and caught her lips. He planted his hands against the wall again, still not trusting his own strength, and then he was the one kissing her cheek, kissing her neck. Suddenly she had a lot more sympathy for him and his easily-overwhelmed senses. She tangled her fingers in his absurd hair, and later she would think it almost embarrassing how quickly she was left stunned and breathless.

He slowly, reluctantly leaned away and she felt him slip something into her parka pocket, though she couldn't quite focus enough yet to open her eyes. With one last gentle kiss, he whispered, "Merry Christmas, Lois." Before the words could even sink in, a breath of cold air washed over her face, and she knew he was gone.

A moment later, when the December fog started chilling her again despite her racing heart, she opened her eyes and curiously reached into her pocket. It was the cash he owed her for Martha's present. It was just money, nothing romantic or even sentimental, but she held tightly to it anyway.


	8. Official Statement

"Lois!" Jenny hurried over to her desk. "Perry's freaking out. He wants you in his office _now_."

Cringing slightly, she stood up and walked to him, mentally reviewing why he might be so upset. It had been more than a month since she'd broken into that police impound; she would have expected to hear about it before now if she'd been caught somehow.

Three weeks before that, she'd posed as a homeless person at the shelter for her Christmas piece, but considering she'd donated a whole week's worth of her salary to it beforehand, she didn't feel _too _guilty about accepting the meal they'd served that day. She especially didn't feel guilty considering the food safety violations she'd uncovered as part of her investigation. Perry hadn't particularly liked her methods, but she couldn't imagine him getting upset about it now.

When she got to Perry's door, she instantly saw that Jenny was right. He was going to blow his lid. He was on the phone, but he gave her a severe look and imperiously pointed at a seat opposite his desk. She stepped in and shut the door behind her, trying to keep the inevitable chewing out private.

Frowning at her, he pushed a button on his landline phone and said, "Why didn't you tell me your flyboy was going to call?"

She stared at him, baffled. He grimaced, put the phone on speaker, and slammed the receiver down in its cradle. It was a voicemail received at 8:33 that morning.

The voice through the tinny speaker announced, "Perry White, this is Superman."

Lois' jaw dropped and she stalked closer to the phone, staring at it.

"After some serious consideration, I've decided to make a public statement regarding my activities here on Earth, past and future. I'd prefer to do that without the restrictions of a press conference. Your paper has been even-handed if not favorable in its coverage, and so I'd like to make that statement through you. Specifically, I'm requesting that Lois Lane interview me. I'll call you back after 6:45 p.m. and we can discuss it then. Two weeks from today would be best for me, but I'm willing to work with your schedule. I'll speak with you again this evening."

The recording ended with an audible click, and stunned, Lois vaguely noticed Perry punch in the necessary code to save the voicemail.

"Is that him?" he gravely asked her, nodding toward the phone.

"I think so," she stuttered. It _could _be him, but Clark didn't talk quite like that. So...formal. Self-assured. She shook her head, realizing that was_ precisely _why he didn't sound like Clark - he wasn't. He was speaking as Superman. Looking at her boss, she added, "I had no idea he was going to call today. I swear."

Perry gave her an evaluating look and then nodded. "I believe you, if you're _that _flustered." Handing her a piece of scratch paper, he said, "That's the number he called from. Track it down. Him even wanting an interview is a story all its own."

She accepted the paper and its accompanying assignment and was halfway to the door when Perry added, "Lois. Keep your head in the game."

She whirled. "I will, Perry. I'll make this my number-one priority."

He smirked. "I know, but stay sharp, too."

She nodded, turned, and had her hand on the doorknob when he said, "Lo-is. What's two weeks from today?"

His tone of voice told her he already knew the answer and that she was missing something obvious, and she froze. "February 14th," she softly replied.

"This exclusive is a pretty big gift, for you and for the Planet. Don't forget to thank him."

"And keep my head in the game," she echoed, smiling a little more widely now and brushing a strand of hair away from her face. Then she let herself out of his office and strode purposefully to her work station.

Jenny sidled to Lois' desk with a notebook in hand before Lois even finished pulling up a reverse-number search on her computer. "You okay?"

"Yeah," Lois answered, forcing herself to focus on the other woman.

"So...?"

"So...I might have an exclusive in the works."

Jenny leaned against the desk, all the curiosity of a young reporter sparkling in her eyes. "And _that _has Perry on the verge of a coronary?"

It took Lois a second to wipe the silly grin off her face before she answered. "Well, he's pretty upset he missed the initial call requesting it. It was Superman."

Jenny squeaked and fumbled her notebook. "You're getting an exclusive with _Superman_?"

"Shh!" Lois hissed. But it was too late. A dozen people stopped what they were doing to stare.

Mustering all the composure she could, Lois firmly said to Jenny, "No. I'm not. It's something we'd like to negotiate, but it hasn't gone anywhere yet."

Jenny shakily nodded her head yes and said, "Oh."

Pretending there was nothing wrong in the world, that she wasn't under the scrutiny of half the office (and that her stalkers hadn't just overheard Jenny, too), Lois turned her chair around and started entering the phone number in the search. After a handful of seconds, everyone except Jenny went back about their business.

The area code was in Los Angeles, but that's all her initial search revealed. She'd have to dig a little deeper.

"So what are you going to ask him?" Jenny wondered in a low voice. "In an interview, I mean."

Lois took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Looking up at her, she said, "That is a very good question."

Jenny's enthusiastic grin made Lois smile, and though it would be a bit beyond the scope of her contract as an intern, Lois said, "We'll brainstorm together, if and when he actually agrees to an interview."

"Okay," Jenny eagerly bobbed her head and moved on to work on her own assignment.

As Lois began running various searches on the phone number, a part of her very much hoped that she wouldn't be able to track it down. She was a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist; she prided herself on her professionalism, on her skill, on her ability to own any story. But what if Lois-Lane-the-Reporter did find out with the next keystroke that Superman's phone number was attached to Clark Kent? There was no question in her mind what she would be obligated to do.

Perry knew that she knew who Superman really was, but thankfully he hadn't pushed her to share that knowledge after she stonewalled him that first month. Besides being insightful himself, he'd known her for years, and he recognized this tangled mess of a story was deeply personal for her. Over time, her coverage of Superman's activities had become strictly factual to the point of being almost superficial, and Perry had let it slide.

This time, however, he couldn't. He couldn't put her personal feelings ahead of the Daily Planet when it came to this exclusive, and she either needed to do her job or clear off her desk to make way for someone else who would.

To her relief, another twenty minutes of researching Superman's phone number led to a dead end. The prefix was for a pay-by-the-minute wireless carrier - in other words, untraceable. If her stalkers had bugged Perry's phone, they probably knew the same thing, as well as the GPS coordinates where he'd made the call, but she was immensely relieved Clark had shown such savvy.

Still, Lois was uneasy. The last time the reporter in her had gone up against Clark's secret, he'd lost. She wouldn't push anywhere near as hard during her coverage of the exclusive, and Perry would chalk it up to her building rapport, but she still needed to stay sharp. As much as she hated to admit it, she was just going to have do her job and trust that Superman was tough enough to handle whatever she threw at him. And pray that the chimera didn't die in the resulting crossfire.

She personally reported the news to Perry about the phone number, and he nodded his head. "I figured he wouldn't be calling from his home phone. Have you started thinking about how you're going to handle this exclusive?"

"Considering the fact that _he _requested it and it's his first real interview with any news outlet, I'd like to go pretty gentle with him, let him make his statement and ask a few follow-up questions. Build that rapport some more."

"That makes for a pretty boring exclusive," he pointed out.

"Yeah." Unless, like Jenny, you were infatuated with the very _idea _of Superman. Lois stood up straighter. "So let's make it more exciting, let our readers feel involved. Take a human-interest perspective."

"And you would do this how?"

"Host a contest. Let people send us questions they'd like me to ask Superman. Maybe we could pick the 25 best questions submitted and let people vote for the top 5 or something."

He nodded. "Sounds good. We've got a few hours until he calls back. Go talk to Corey in Marketing and see what you two can come up with. Let me know by 5:30 p.m. what you've got for me. I don't want to be giving him a half-baked plan."

Relieved that she'd found a balance that both she and Perry could live with, Lois wandered down three flights to the murky world of marketing.

By the time she returned to the bullpen, Lois was confident she'd made the right choice. Corey had squealed like a fanboy at the idea of the contest and was already working with the webmasters to figure out logistics. Marketing was ecstatic and Perry was pleased, so now she just needed to get Superman on board.

By dint of pure determination, she was able to knuckle down and wrap up her battle plan for the next week regarding the simmering scandal in Metropolis police department's drug unit. It was looking fairly mundane - most likely a crooked cop - and especially with a potential exclusive in the works, she'd probably hand it off to somebody else. All the more reason to have everything clearly spelled out for whoever inherited the story.

She took her dinner break a little earlier than usual so she could be back well before 6:15 p.m., and Perry called her in immediately.

"Lois, if you ever repeat this I'll deny it, but I'm sorry."

She raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Wow. So, off the record, what exactly are you apologizing for?"

He frowned slightly, but there was amusement in his eyes. "For giving you grief, for not trusting you from the beginning. You've been caught between a rock and a hard place for months, but you're getting us this exclusive. So, good work."

"I haven't bagged it yet, chief."

"He called us. You'll bag it."

The phone rang at 6:45 PM sharp, and Lois was a little surprised by how nervous she felt. Perry gave her an appraising look and then picked up the receiver. "Hello?" After a pause, he said "I have Lois Lane with me right now. Do you mind if I put us on speaker phone?"

A heartbeat later he did, and the voice on the other end said, "Hello again, Ms. Lane."

It was so disconcerting to hear him call her by that name that it took Lois a moment to respond. "Hello, Superman."

"I'll get right to the point," he said, all business. "As I said in my message this morning, I'd like to give an exclusive interview, and I'd like it to be with Ms. Lane."

"That works with my schedule," Lois assured him. "When were you thinking of doing this and where?"

"I assumed you would want to do it at the Daily Planet. Purely for logistical reasons, I also assumed that evening would be best, maybe 7:00 p.m. Fewer people in the building means smaller crowds that I'll have to deal with."

It _was _his voice, Lois knew, but it was so unlike him to talk about avoiding flocks of admirers, and his brusque tone was even more off from the Clark she knew. Frankly, it was weirding her out a little.

"That'll be fine," Perry said, giving her a strange look when she didn't respond.

"How will you get here?" Lois found herself asking.

"As long as there's a maintenance entrance on the roof, flying to the top of the building and meeting you there will probably be easiest. I'm content with an indoor interview, of course, considering it's mid-February."

Reassured that this was indeed Superman on the other end of the line, she said, "Sounds good. Would you mind if we publicized in advance that we'll be running an exclusive interview with you?"

"So long as the actual date, time, and place of the interview are not made public, I have no objections to any promotions you might want to do."

Lois frowned again. Clark would've said, "I trust your judgment." It was almost spooky how convincingly he had stepped into the Superman persona.

_Aren't we a pair,_ she thought, _me with my clinical paranoia, and him with his multiple personality disorder._

"Do you have any other concerns regarding the interview?" Superman asked.

"Not at this time," Lois answered, "but would you be able to call back again a day or so before the interview, just in case we need to make any last-minute changes?"

"That would be fine. Until then, Ms. Lane, Mr. White."

"Bye," she answered, and Perry hung up the phone. He scribbled down the phone number Superman had called from and handed it off to Lois. She automatically accepted it, and Perry gave her a curious look. "Problem?"

"No," she said, shaking her head a little to clear it. "It's just been a while since I've talked to Superman. I'd forgotten what he's like." Holding up the scrap of paper, she said, "Head in the game."

Both Corey and Jenny were waiting by Lois' desk, and they fell silent as soon as they saw her. "So...?" he eagerly asked.

"We've got the green light."

He punched the air and hurried toward the elevator, already on the phone with somebody or another in his department, eagerly plotting how they were going to milk this exclusive for all it was worth.

"Brainstorm?" Jenny hopefully asked.

Lois shook her head. "Perry has other plans, _but_ I think I'll want a photographer for this one. You in?"

"Woot!" Jenny exclaimed, bouncing on the balls of her feet, and Lois choked on a laugh. Fortunately, the younger woman was far too excited to notice. "Yes!"

"You sure about that?" Lois teased her. "It _is _on Valentine's Day, after all."

"For a date with a superhero, I'll clear my schedule. Thanks, Lois!" She almost skipped her way to the elevator.

The bullpen was mostly quiet, so Lois took a moment to look up Superman's second phone call of the day. It only took her a few minutes this time, tracing it to a rest area in North Dakota. Relieved, Lois closed down her work station and went home for the night.

...

February 13th, Superman called at 4:00 p.m. and confirmed with Perry that the time and place for the interview were still good. That night, Lois chose her outfit for the next day on the principle that it would be a rational choice before bed but an emotional one in the morning. It only took her three tries before she decided on a warm-gray jacket and skirt set with a pale rose cowl-neck blouse. Yes, it was unnecessarily feminine, especially for a powerhouse interview like this, but it was Valentine's Day, for crying out loud, and if she didn't wear pink it would be boycotting the day. It'd be like forgetting to wear green on St. Patrick's. Considering the lengths Clark – Superman – had gone to in order to be with her on Valentine's Day, she had every intention of letting him know she appreciated it.

And then she rolled her eyes at herself in the mirror for letting herself care this much about how other people might interpret her in a pink blouse.

To compensate her pride the next morning, she carefully and deliberately did nothing out of the ordinary with her hair or make-up and arrived five minutes late to work like usual. She threw herself into preparing for the interview, reviewing all the news stories available on Superman and scribbling down a few last-minute notes about gaps in information and additional questions she could ask.

She forced herself to leave the building and cross the street to Jean's Beans for lunch. As usual, her barista was a short blonde woman instead of Clark, and Lois wistfully returned to her work with a half-eaten salad. The afternoon was spent with Jenny clearing out a conference room to prepare it for the interview and then setting up the multimedia equipment. (Subscribers would have access to an edited video version of the interview online, and already Marketing was popping champagne bottles in celebration of the Planet's best single week _ever _for new subscriptions.)

Then she and Jenny went back over to Jean's Beans for a dinner of sandwiches and decaf because, while Lois would adamantly deny that she was nervous, she knew her limits.

At 6:30 p.m. Lois and Jenny took the elevator to the top floor and then climbed the short flight to the roof access door.

"It's _freezing _out here!" Jenny hissed when they stepped out into the darkness.

"It's warmer than the Arctic," Lois pointed out, though she was desperately wishing she'd worn the pants that went with her suit-jacket instead of the skirt.

"But still no place for an interview," a voice said behind them and both women whirled.

And there he was: Clark. He was in the suit, of course, hovering mid-air a couple steps away from the edge of the roof, but his hair was the right cut again and he gave her a knowing, playful smirk that reminded her of a California desert and his breakneck flight to save the world. He drifted forward to touch down on roof within arm's reach.

"Miss Lane," he greeted, extending his hand. "Good to see you again."

Thrown off a little by his formality, she shook it, but his grip was solid, _real_, and it centered her. "Nice to see you, too."

He cast a curious glance at Jenny and Lois waved the intern forward. "Superman, this is my friend Jennifer Jurwich. If you don't mind, she'll be my assistant tonight. We'd like to videotape the interview for accuracy in our reporting as well as get a few candid still-shots. Jenny here would take care of that. With your consent."

"Of course," he answered. He gave Jenny a charming smile and extended his hand, saying, "Any friend of Miss Lane's is a friend of mine."

Jenny flushed when she shook his hand but was completely tongue-tied.

"Let's get you inside," he suggested and Jenny bolted for the door.

Lois was only a step behind her. She reached for his hand but almost immediately caught herself. Clark would hold her hand; Superman would shake it. She had to compartmentalize them or she might as well call the interview quits right now. Clark...Superman gave her a concerned look, but she managed a smile and nodded her head. She could do this.

"After you," he gallantly said, holding the door open for her. At the bottom of the first flight, she turned to make a pathetic attempt at small talk, but he was still at the top of the stairs, frowning thoughtfully.

"Something wrong?" she wondered.

He purposely strode forward and down the steps, but he said in a low voice, "Creepy crawlies."

Creepy... Bugs, Lois realized. The Planet had been bugged, too. "Here?" she asked, looking at the sterile hall around them. Why would anybody plant listening devices or cameras here... unless they knew he was coming and this would be his route into the building. The only way anyone would know that was if they'd eavesdropped on Perry two weeks ago. Lois felt a flare of indignation at that, but she quickly tamped it down. This was neither the time or place to deal with that.

"Guess I'd better let maintenance know," she muttered, easily falling into her months-long habit of guarding her words even in her own apartment.

"Good luck with that," he retorted. But they were at the elevator now where Jenny was waiting, and his expression changed from mildly worried to pleasant. The elevator ride was quiet, and on the way to the prepared conference room, Lois ignored the way he scanned each hallway and room, no doubt continuing to check for bugs.

Once they arrived in the conference room, she gestured toward one of the two chairs they'd set up. "If you'll have a seat, Superman, we'll get right to it." After a second, she prompted, "Jenny?"

The girl jumped slightly, startled out of her awestruck reverie, and hurried over to first one camera and the other, double-checking the focus and zoom.

As soon as Jenny gave her a nod of approval, Lois said, "Firstly, Superman, we really appreciate your offer for an exclusive interview tonight. On behalf of myself personally and everyone at The Daily Planet, thank you."

He nodded his head in acknowledgement. "My pleasure, Miss Lane."

_Mine, too_, she mentally answered before the reporter in her shushed the fangirl. "So, getting down to business, you mentioned previously that you wished to make an official statement of some kind."

He hesitated a second and then said, "To be perfectly honest, Miss Lane, I don't have much of a way with words. That's why I wanted an interview instead of a press conference. I'll say what I came here to say, but if you're willing, I'd like to rely on you to ask any questions that will help flesh out or clarify anything that needs it."

In other words, Lois thought, he was here as Superman because he needed an ally right now. "I certainly plan on doing that," she assured him. "So what was it you came here to say?"

He nodded decisively. "I'm here to help."

"Care to elaborate?" she said, "Because that's a motto, not a statement."

He flashed her a hint of a smile and said, "My only memories are of Earth. I grew up here. I was a teenager before I learned that I was not born on this world. It was only in the last six months that I learned where I came from. _What _I am might be alien, but _who _I am is just another average Joe."

Clark's friend Lois would have accepted that with a sly smile at the inside joke about his first secret identity, but Lois the Reporter couldn't. Gesturing at his Kryptonian attire, she said, "Just looking at you, no one is ever going to believe that."

Skeptically, he retorted, "For decades, people have looked and not seen anything more." His eyes warmed slightly when he said, "With a few notable exceptions." Growing more serious, he continued, "The day after the Battle of Metropolis, I volunteered to help with the rescue efforts, and I was met with drawn weapons by the police force. That's been a common reaction wherever I go. By and large, news reports have failed to mention that when I do arrive on the scene, I don't simply jump in to help. If there is someone in charge, I offer first. So far, that offer has always been accepted and I hope that will always be the case.

"The Metropolis emergency services almost didn't let me volunteer, though. They were willing to let me help, but only if I agreed to let them arrest me afterward. That has also been the reaction in a few other instances. So I want to make another thing clear: I'm here to help, but it has to be on my own terms."

"And those terms are...?"

"That I offer my services without any strings attached, and that the acceptance of those services also be without any strings attached. Pure and simple."

"So, just to clarify, you're saying that it's an unconditional offer that has to be unconditionally accepted."

"Yes."

Smiling ever so slightly, she said, "Those are pretty open terms."

"Like I said, I'm here to help."

"Why?" the reporter in her demanded.

He frowned thoughtfully and then held her gaze. "If you saw an infant in danger - a baby-carrier in the middle of street - and you could save him, would you?"

"The question is, would you?" Lois reminded him.

He leaned back slightly and gathered his thoughts for a moment before saying, "You're familiar with the philosophical concept of a social contract?"

"Of course."

"I consider myself part of that contract. I don't deny that, if I chose to, I could do a lot of damage. But I _want _to interact with humanity. I _want_ to share this world, unlike General Zod and his soldiers. And so just like the vast majority of human beings, I'm willing to forego 'might makes right' in favor of living peaceably."

"That explains why you're willing to live and let live," Lois pointed out, "but it doesn't explain why you want to actually _help_."

He nodded, again gathering his thoughts. "Especially after the harm Zod inflicted, humanity might not be willing to share this world with _me_. That requires trust, or at a minimum, a balance of power, something that doesn't exist between me and humanity, at least not right now. So I'm following the advice a wise man once gave me and making a leap of faith in the hope that trust will follow."

"...at least not right now?" Lois latched onto that provocative qualifier.

And suddenly Superman gave her a shy smile that was so very Clark. "My father - my birth father - had high hopes for humanity. I don't fully understand the scope or method of achieving those hopes, but...I share them. Humanity has a potential none of us can fully comprehend, the potential to be a force for good."

"You want to help us achieve that potential," she realized.

He nodded. "Yes."

"Why?" she repeated. She knew the answer - because he _cared_ - but it was like pulling teeth to get him to say it.

"Because Earth is my home."

"And the people of Earth?"

"...Are my friends, my family." He steadily held her gaze. "My life."

Lois frowned slightly in frustration, deciding that was the best she was going to get unless she led him by the nose to it. She pointedly ignored the warmth that swelled through her at his words.

"Going back to this potential for good. How do you intend to bring that about? Scientific advancements? Political intervention? And how do you define 'good'?"

"Like I said, I don't understand the full scope or process, but I intend to lead by example, nothing more. As for defining what 'good' is, humanity has spent millennia trying to arrive at a definition of that, some results more persuasive in my mind than others. However, it's almost universally accepted that genuine goodness cannot be forced. It's a choice, and I'm content to let humanity decide for themselves what is good."

_Good answer_, Lois thought approvingly.

* * *

Author's End Note: You, too, can participate in The Daily Planet's question contest for Superman! :) I have a couple of questions (out of the allotted 5) I'm for sure going to have Lois ask, and I have a few ideas for the rest, but if anyone is dying to have her pose a specific question, let me know in a review or PM and I'll see if I can work it in.

Also, sorry about the abrupt end to the chapter, but this interview is going to be a beast even with cutting it in half. I won't keep you waiting too long, though. :)


	9. Frequently Asked Questions

Author's Humongous Note: Firstly, thank you so much to everyone who has reviewed, favorited or followed this fic. Your encouragement keeps me writing! :) And speaking of writing, I've been updating like mad because I'd written ahead quite a bit before I started posting this story, and unfortunately, I've used up the running start that gave me. Since my kids are getting tired of fast food for dinner and I do need to occasionally wash dishes, my updating frequency will probably drop to once or twice per week instead of every other day. :) Don't worry, though; there's quite a lot to tell still with this fic.

Thank you also to everyone who contributed a question for the Top 5 contest! After reading them all, I was kicking myself that I hadn't allowed for ten questions instead of five (though that would have made the chapter enormous). Unlike the Daily Planet, I want to give credit where it's due for the questions my readers contributed for this chapter. :) In order of their appearance, many thanks to Kawherp for the idea of the thank-you notes, to Nanou1983 for the first question, to a guest for the second one, to Drebin0985 and Marilyn LinLithgow for the third question, to Dean Cain's Clark Kent (from the _Lois and Clark _TV series) for the fourth question (and to my friend DarthIshtar for the answer), and to Lil'B and a couple of guests for giving me an excuse to write the final one.

Thanks again, and I hope you enjoy!

* * *

Lois the Reporter looked down at her clipboard, knowing that there were a good fifty questions she should continue to ask about him, about his intentions, about his perspective on his own life and on humanity, but Clark's friend deliberately reigned herself in. She reminded herself that she was being gentle this first time so that he'd be willing to come back to the Daily Planet in the future, and then she could ask the tough questions. (Perry might be put out with her, but Corey would be ecstatic.)

"I think that answers most of my questions for now," she said. "Is there anything else you'd like to add."

He shook his head and a flicker of relief shown in his eyes before he settled back into his Superman persona.

"In that case, I hope you don't mind, but when our readers learned that we'd be interviewing you, they were very excited."

"I know," he confidently answered. "I read about the contest. In fact, submitted a question, though I'm sure I wasn't the only one who asked it."

"Really?"

"Yes. It made the top 5."

Lois the Reporter was genuinely intrigued now. "Oh. Which one?"

His eyes warmed with that same mischievous humor as when he refused to tell her how he shaved, though he still wore Superman's calm mask of an expression. "The rules made it very clear that the submissions were anonymous and no one would be given credit for the questions."

The part of her that was Clark's friend inwardly pouted; the reporter in her merely nodded her head and mentally picked up that gauntlet.

"Well, before we start in on those top 5 questions, there was one thing I have for you that might be a surprise. It certainly was to our editorial board. While most of the responses we received were genuine questions, this one is representative of more than fifty comments."

Looking down, she read off the clipboard.

"Dear Superman. A few years back, I was on the ground in a diner parking lot in Clarksdale, Arizona fighting with my tire jack as I tried to change the flat on my old pickup. As I remembered it initially, the jack broke and collapsed and nearly pinned my leg. but the next thing I knew, a young man was there and I was about 6' away from the truck. He knelt between me and the truck and I thought I was imagining things when the truck was back on it's jack like nothing had happened. He changed the tire, tossed the flat into the truck bed, and helped me to my feet. When I asked him what had happened, and how he'd done it so fast, he just smiled and said he'd grown up on a farm, so changing tires was no big deal. At the time, I figured either I was sicker than I thought after my recent heart surgery and thus hallucinating about the near accident or I'd been helped by an angel. Now, I'm wondering if it was you. If so, I have to thank you for you kindness that day. Between my surgery a few months prior, the bill collectors calling, and some other bad stuff, I'd really started to lose hope. That day gave me back my faith in people and life is a lot better for me now.

"Just wondered if you were the one to thank or not. Maybe you'll remember the make and model of the truck since you mentioned then your old man had always wanted to own one.

"Signed, Bill."

Superman's gaze grew distant and a small almost-Clark smile on his lips. "I remember Bill. The truck was a 1969 Chevy." Focusing on her again, he confessed, "Yes, that was me."

Lois smiled, pleased that she'd have something to give him this Valentine's Day. From the bottom of her clipboard, she pulled out a manila envelope and handed it to him. "These are print copies of all the thank you notes the Daily Planet received as part of our contest. I hope you enjoy perusing them in the future."

He was tongue-tied as he accepted them, finally managing to say, "Thank you, Ms. Lane."

"My pleasure," she said. "So, about those five questions...are you willing to answer them?"

"Yes, to the best of my ability."

"I'd like to address what will probably the toughest one first. It's a summary and combination of some of the questions our readers asked most frequently: Because of the conflicts of your people, half of the Metropolis downtown was destroyed and tens of thousands of human beings are missing or dead. You keep your human identity secret and you killed one of your own. After all that, why should we let you stay on Earth?"

"Mind if I start with the easiest one first?" he asked, his face a calm mask even though anguish was plain to be seen in his eyes. Lois shook her head and Superman said, "My first thought when I read this question was that I had no choice when it came to killing my own, but that's not true. I killed Zod because if I didn't, he would slaughter the entire human race. I had to choose between my home and my heritage. If I'd had a better choice - a way to lock him up, to send him away like we did the others - I would have taken it, but that wasn't one of my options. I have blood on my hands and will until the day I die, but it is the blood of the violent instead of the blood of the innocent. It was the best I could do, given the circumstances.

"As for the tens of thousands who are dead or missing..." He took a deep breath and steadily held her gaze. "I have a photographic memory. I know them individually - their names and their faces. I have read every obituary and missing poster, every last one. For many of them, I saw their broken bodies. I _know _the cost of Zod's actions probably better than any human who didn't lose a loved one. Even if humanity won't choose to accept me, I have chosen to accept you."

It wasn't until the tear spilled down her cheek that Lois recognized the twisting sensation near her heart: the compassion that made her want to hold the man before her again and shelter him from his demons. _He. Cared._ Even she hadn't understood just how much until now.

Superman noticed that she was crying, of course, and paused. Clark would have taken her hand, dried her tears with his thumb. Superman, however, simply waited with kind patience until she was composed again.

"I can't bring them back to life," he continued, voice and expression hardening again, "no matter how much I wish I could. I'm not God. When I surrendered to the US military, I hoped that if you were the ones who turned me over to Zod it would appease him, and he would leave Earth alone. Obviously, that didn't work. He chose the battlegrounds and, again, I did the best I could given the circumstances.

"The question about my human identity is related to that. Even though I did my best, many lives were lost because, frankly, I didn't know what I was doing. I'm not a soldier. All my life, I've avoided conflict; I'd never even gotten into a fist-fight until Zod. I've never studied martial arts or military tactics. My entire adult life has been spent trying to stay out of humanity's way.

"Your readers have asked why I should be allowed to stay. I have retained my human identity so that, if the world decides that they truly don't want Superman anymore, I can get out of the way again. Earth is the only home I've ever known, and I won't be leaving it. I will, however, leave it alone if necessary."

Remembering the trail of miracles that had led her to him, Lois asked, "Do you honestly think you could do that?"

"I _would_."

The thought was almost frightening, but Lois pushed it to the back of her mind. "The next question is almost as tough: What are your 3 greatest challenges?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Besides what we've already talked about? I'd say my biggest challenge is that my superpowers don't include the ability to be in more than one place at a time. That often forces me to chose in ways that are very, very difficult. Sometimes it feels like life has become an ongoing triage."

Lois had expected the answer to be loneliness, but again, that was something that Clark would struggle with, not Superman.

"The second-biggest challenge is probably keeping my temper. There's a lot of pain in the world without people intentionally hurting each other. Seeing people suffer because of another person's malice or hate..." His jaw clenched. "Let's just say I'm pretty human in my reaction to that."

"And the third?" Lois prompted.

With just a hint of a smile, he answered, "Not gaining weight so that the suit will still fit."

She didn't even try to resist her answering smile. "You'll have to keep us appraised on how that goes. I'll look forward to the diet book. Ready for the next one?"

"Sure."

"Were you born with your abilities? Do all Kryptonians have them? How many are there? What's your favorite one and why?"

Superman leaned back more comfortably in his chair and Lois knew this would be an easy one for him. "Krypton's environment was much harsher than Earth's, and my abilities stem from the differences between those environments. So any Kryptonian would have my abilities on Earth, but on Krypton, I would have been no stronger or more powerful than a human is on Earth.

"As for my powers themselves, I've been discovering new ones since I was about 8 years old. They include what you, Ms. Lane, have dubbed heat vision, X-ray vision, and super sight, speed, and hearing. I'm physically stronger, harder to injure, and quicker to heal. And, of course, there's the flying. That is my favorite one, far and away."

"Why?" Lois prompted him.

"Probably for the same reason anyone else would enjoy it. There's the thrill of speed. There's an amazing freedom to it that I can't even begin to describe."

"I take it you're not afraid of heights, then," Lois couldn't help adding.

He shrugged. "It's like learning to ride a bike. After you fall a few times and realize you'll survive it, it's much less scary."

Even Lois the Reporter smirked at that. "That's an interesting mental image."

With a sidelong glance at Jenny, he said, "I'm not giving candid shots of _that_, so you'll just have to stick with your imagination."

Jenny smiled shyly to be included in the conversation a little.

"Well if you're going to be no fun with that, let's move on to the next one. If you played major-league baseball, which position would you play and why? And I'll have you know we've got a betting pool going in the office about what your answer will be. I'm sure we're not the only ones."

He fought a grin and said, "I hope I don't disappoint, then. I'd play catcher."

"Really?" Lois couldn't help exclaiming. "I had my money on pitcher."

He shook his head. "The catcher is the one who sees the whole game, and anyone who wants to make it to the home plate has to get through him first. Besides, the catcher needs to be the one with the best reflexes...and the hardest head."

Lois tilted her head in acknowledgement of that last point.

"And now the final question, which was the one that was asked most frequently: Do you have a significant other? If not, what would you look for in a girl (or guy)?"

"Um, it would be a girl. And no, I don't have anyone I'd call a girlfriend or significant other."

Lois frowned slightly at that. Technically, it was true, though she'd like to think that she'd at least earned the status of 'girlfriend.'

"As for what I look for in a girl, at the risk of sounding shallow, I've always been partial to brunettes."

By dint of sheer determination, she didn't grimace.

"Considering my own type-A personality, I'm drawn to the easy-going type, someone who can walk out of the office at the end of the day and leave it all behind her."

Lois could feel the flush of irritation creeping over her cheeks, but when her gaze met his, the sparkle in his eyes stopped her anger in its tracks. He was _teasing _her.

His words finally caught up with her. _Type-A personality_, she mentally scoffed, _that's Superman, not Clark_. And the woman he was describing was very much not her, either. He was protecting her as much as he was himself with this misdirection.

Then she was fighting a grin instead of a grimace. "Where do you think you'd find a woman like that?"

"Oh, I've met them all over," he casually answered, "but island girls are the best."

"Interesting," Lois managed to say, steering her thoughts clear of the Arctic. "Anything else you look for?"

"Oh! Yes, she needs to be a good cook because, much as I hate to admit it, I'm a pretty picky eater."

Lois nodded in sympathy. "I'm sure, being an alien, that it's hard to find foods that agree with you."

"Exactly. When I was a kid, I practically lived on cherry Jello," he confessed.

"Is that how you stay so fit?"

"I'm not anorexic if that's what you mean," he firmly declared. "I stay fit by drinking protein shakes and working out, just like any human being."

_More like steaks instead of protein shakes and bench pressing oil rigs, _Lois mentally retorted. Out loud, she simply said, "I see. Well, that's all the questions we had for you this evening. Is there anything else you'd like to say before we finish up?"

"Yes. Thank you, Ms. Lane. And please thank your editor Mr. White for me. I appreciate your willingness to accommodate me, and if I have a need to communicate broadly like this again, I'll be in touch with him."

"I'm sure he'll be very happy to know that."

Lois smoothly stood and extended her hand. Superman rose to his feet as well and shook it.

"And..." Jenny announced, touching a button on the video recorder, "...that's a wrap." Then she hurried over to the other recorder and turned it off before picking a camera. "Are you still okay with some candid stills?" she asked Superman.

"That would be fine," he answered.

Jenny consulted her own clipboard for the list she and Lois had prepared that afternoon and Superman spent the next ten minutes posing with Lois and by himself in various places throughout the building.

Now that she had time to casually observe him, Lois was increasingly...uneasy at how dramatic the difference was between the Clark she knew and his Superman persona. He stood straighter, held his chin higher, and moved with graceful confidence. This was a man who had every intention of standing out, while Clark had spent a lifetime trying to go unnoticed. What was going on in his head that he could pull off that part so well?

Lois also couldn't help but notice the way his gaze roved over the ceiling and walls wherever they went but she didn't comment, assuming that he was sweeping for bugs still. The final shot was in front of the Daily Planet sculpture in the lobby, and Superman said, "If it's all the same to you, I think I'll just leave through the front door. It'll spare you both a hike back to the roof."

"Sure," Lois agreed.

He took a moment to shake hands with Jenny one last time before turning his attention to Lois. Taking her hand in both of his, he said, "Thank you so much, Ms. Lane."

She felt something stiff slip under her watch band - a piece of paper, from the feel of it - and her heart warmed when she realized he was the one who had hidden it there.

"My pleasure, Superman. Take care."

He released her hand and walked toward the door saying, "You, too." People startled out of his way when he stepped out onto the street, but he lifted off almost casually before gliding out of sight.

"I need to use the restroom," she told Jenny. "Go ahead and get started clearing that conference room and I'll be right there."

The younger woman sighed, clearly starstruck, before saying, "Sure thing, Lois."

Hoping that whoever had bugged the Planet left the bathrooms alone, she hurried into the nearest restroom and surreptitiously pulled the paper away from her wrist. It was simply a folded sticky note that said "For home" on one side and had a YouTube URL written out on the other.

Lois smiled to herself. It looked like Clark had come up with a new way to mess with her stalkers' mind. Still, to keep things as clandestine as possible, she pulled out her phone, typed a note on it with the URL, and then flushed the sticky note down the toilet.

Clean up went quickly and soon Jenny and Lois finished up and headed home for the evening. Reasonably confident that Clark wouldn't try to meet her a second time in one night, she hailed a cab and got home as quickly as she could. The whole while, she wondered what the video might be of. Would it be related to journalism or Lewis and Clark? Or maybe it would be another conspiracy theory rant. _That _would be enough to make them really freak out.

Once she was inside, she hurried to her computer and pulled up the website. Oddly enough, it was a music video, "Gone, Gone, Gone" by Phillip Phillips. Truly curious now about how this would throw off her stalkers, she clicked "Play."

"_When life leaves you high and dry  
__I'll be at your door tonight  
__If you need help, if you need help._"_  
_

Lois blinked and looked at her balcony door. It was a just a song, she reminded herself, and it was mid-February, to boot. It wasn't like she could just throw the door open on the wild hope that she was supposed to take the words literally. Still...it couldn't hurt to unlock it. She crossed the room and, despite herself, she stepped out onto the balcony. She couldn't see him, but she couldn't shake the impression that he was near. It was probably just her imagination, wishful thinking, but she left the door unlocked when she went back inside. The lyrics of the next verse caught her attention then.

"_When you fall like a statue  
__I'm gon' be there to catch you  
__Put you on your feet, you on your feet._"_  
_

...the two of them in a cornfield, in the pulverized ruins of Metropolis...

"_And if your well is empty  
__Not a thing will prevent me.  
__Tell me what you need, what do you need?_"_  
_

...he needed her, and she needed him...

"_I surrender honestly."_

...wouldn't be much of a surrender...

_"You've always done the same for me._"

...Thank you for believing in me...

Tears welled up in her eyes - stupid, silly sentimental tears - but these lyrics were so true to what he might say that she almost wondered if he had written them. She took a deep breath, took comfort in this reminder that Superman was just a disguise, that her Clark was still in there, and that he still cared about her.

"_You're my back bone.  
__You're my cornerstone.  
__You're my crutch when my legs stop moving._"_  
_

...him falling to his knees, clinging to her as he cried...

"_You're my head start.  
__You're my rugged heart.  
__You're the pulse that I've always needed.__  
_

She sat down in front of her computer again and let the words, the driving hope and excitement of the music, wash over her. This was her Valentine's Day card, she realized, not another mock-coded email message. He gave her _this _link, not one with just the lyrics, because he wanted her to _experience _the song. It was devotion and admiration and respect. It was _him_.

"_Baby, I'm not moving on.  
__I love you long after you're gone.  
__For you, for you.  
__You would never sleep alone.  
__I love you long after you're gone_."  
_For you, for you._

The thought of him here to _stay_, of never sleeping alone again, literally took her breath away. And then there were the words sung over and over, "_I love you_." When he gave her this link, did he mean those words, too?

When the final strains faded, she hit the "Replay" button and, as an afterthought, looked up the lyrics so she could read along.

The second verse was as perfect for the two of them as the first and third had been.

"_When enemies are at your door  
__I'll carry you away from war  
__If you need help, if you need help.  
__Your hope dangling by a string..."__  
_

…It's not an 'S.' It means 'Hope'...

"_I'll share in your suffering  
__To make you well, to make you well."__  
_

...Nobility incarnate...

She immediately logged in and bought a download of the song. Not caring if her stalkers were listening in tonight or not, she cranked the volume, set it to repeat, and reveled in the song.


	10. Don't Tug on Superman's Cape

Author's Note: Sorry about that change of character focus here, but as I tried to write the next story arc, I realized that following Superman around on this particular day would be infinitely more fun than hearing him tell Lois about it later. (It also spares Clark the trauma of explaining in great detail to Lois what happens when Superman reaches his limit.)

A special shout-out goes to IronRaven, who I and my collaborators in another fandom affectionately refer to as our weapons specialist. If there's any degree of believability to the espionage in this story, it's thanks to him.

Also, I've worked hard to keep the language clean in this fic, but sometimes only a swear word will do. I'm sorry, but I promise I won't make a habit of it.

Hope you enjoy!

* * *

Clark told himself he was just watching out for her. Lois was precious, his only true friend, and she'd made extraordinary sacrifices for him. The least he could do was make a flyby a couple of times a day to check in on her.

But deep down, he knew it was a lie. She was precious, but she was much more than a friend. He was indulging himself when he checked up on her, and he felt like the worst kind of hypocrite about it, too. When he'd first seen the espionage equipment, he'd been...well, upset was an understatement, but here he was spying on her, too. The fact that she hadn't objected didn't change the truth that spying was spying and if it was unacceptable for _them_, it was unacceptable for him.

He couldn't quite muster enough guilt about it to actually stop, though.

It was early morning, crisp and clear and perfect for flying. He was just coming off the graveyard shift at the construction site, and most of the city was either still asleep or too groggy to pay much attention to something happening a couple thousand feet up. So he'd suited up and taken to the sky to greet the sunrise and feel the life-giving light wash across his skin. Lois' apartment just happened to be on the way.

To make ends meet, he'd found an apartment with a roommate. While it was less than ideal, the roommate worked days, and working opposite shifts gave them both more privacy. It also gave him a chance to disappear for a few hours when Superman was needed, and no one would be around to question why. It was a little strange to think of himself in the third-person like that, but it was getting easier with time. He wasn't sure if he should be comforted by that fact or not.

Lois was still asleep. He'd learned early on that she was a night owl - so much so that a few times she'd been getting ready for bed when he was heading home from work. He allotted himself one minute to watch her now, on this mid-February morning, before searching yet again to see if they'd removed the bugs from her apartment. About a month ago, Lois' stalkers stopped restocking the devices that weren't hardwired once the batteries died (and there were only three of those). It had given him hope that they were giving up on the surveillance, but until those devices were actually _removed _from her apartment, he wasn't going to risk visiting her there.

It was only once their interest in her home was apparently waning that he had called the Daily Planet about an interview. He'd hoped that going through professional routes to contact her would prove that he didn't need to show up on her balcony. But still, even after his exclusive with Lois last night, nothing had changed.

That made no sense. The interview was a fairly significant change, so why didn't they respond? Sudden misgiving filled him. They were apparently abandoning high-tech surveillance, but that didn't necessarily mean they were giving up on _her_.

For the first time in weeks, he let first his super-sight and X-ray vision sweep the surrounding buildings. (Considering how angry he was about Lois' privacy being invaded, he was reluctant to scan random strangers' offices and homes.) What he found was the straw that officially broke the camel's back.

In the building opposite Lois' apartment, one floor up and two doors over, he saw a telescope pointed at her bedroom window. Three men were in the room with it, one studying a video feed that was apparently coming from the scope while the second was opening a box of donuts (presumably to share) and the third was carefully setting out coffee cups on the desk. Judging by the pile of various food containers and the disarray of the set up, he guessed it had been there for at least several days.

Both he and Lois knew that somebody was on the other end of all the devices in her apartment, but it wasn't the same as _seeing_ an entire group of scruffy, leering men ogling his ...more-than-friend... while she slept. This was suddenly, irrevocably personal, and it would end _now_.

An inner voice told him it was _wrong _to simply swoop in and wreak personal vengeance. (After all he'd learned in the last year, he strongly suspected that voice was somehow his mother Lara's.) So he took a deep breath and mentally shifted gears. He wasn't Clark Kent engaging in a display of blatant machismo that could quite possibly earn him a chewing out from Lois. He was Superman, and he was righting a wrong.

After another two deep breaths, he decided he was as in control as he was going to be and relaxed against the updraft coming off the man-made canyons below. Slowly he drifted down until he was hovering directly in the line of sight for the telescope, and he took a moment to X-ray the wallets of the men in front of him. James Monahan was the doughnut man, Kyle Scott was the coffee man, and William Matzuka was the one at the monitor. All of them were now marked.

William had turned around to accept the questionable breakfast from his fellow spies, but when he looked back at the monitor and saw Superman's iconic shield filling it, he swore and jumped back, spilling coffee all over the keyboard and himself.

Superman didn't - wouldn't - smirk at that, but Clark was feeling incredibly smug.

They all stared owlishly at him when he floated closer to stop not ten feet away.

"Do you think he knows we're here?" William nervously asked James.

Superman nodded his head in answer. The reflective windows were solid-pane glass that didn't open, so the only way he could verbally answer was to shout, and Superman didn't need to stoop to such things.

Directing his question at Superman this time, James asked, "You can hear us?"

Again, Superman nodded.

"So...why are you here?"

Superman quirked an eyebrow at him that very clearly said, "Do you seriously think I'm stupid?" Through the imperfect window, he noticed small details, like how Kyle was sweating profusely and James' heartbeat had doubled. William was the most miserable of them all, having to stare down a superhero while smarting from a coffee-stain on his crotch.

"We have orders," James defiantly said. "You can step, um, move aside or...holy shit!" He dove behind a desk as Superman's eyes burned red. With very tightly-controlled heat vision, Superman seared through the window, pierced the scope's casing, and melted its largest refractor as well as most of the wiring. "You're done here," he firmly said, now that his words would carry through the smoldering window. "I'll personally speak with your superiors about that."

When they just stood there, frozen in terror at his still-red eyes, Superman turned his heat vision on the monitor, carving it in half, and then sliced through every other electronic device in the room. All three of them bolted for the door.

After months of feeling powerless, even Superman could admit that finally taking action was deeply satisfying. Hearing his name (or at least his pseudonym) repeated over and over on the street below, he glanced down to see that quite a crowd had gathered. For a long moment, he seriously considered the idea of simply going down there and announcing to them the names of the men who had been peeping through a woman's window, but he decided against it. They were small players, ultimately, and as they'd pointed out, they were simply following their chain of command.

That, he decided, would be the next step.

He flew around the building, looking through it until he saw three men in an elevator. James was on his cell phone, a discarded headset on the floor at his feet. Zeroing in on their conversation, he gathered that he had destroyed a communication hub and James' team was reduced to using cell phones. From the sound of it, he was talking to a headquarters of some kind. Perfect.

The three men bolted through a side-door and ran for a cargo van, but Superman was quicker. He swooped in to snatch the phone out of James' hand before he could even react. He hovered about a dozen feet off the ground and, after cutting short the call, opened the contacts list and skimmed it for names, phone numbers, and addresses. Kyle drew his sidearm and took several shots at Superman, who frowned in concern as they ricocheted into the parking lot. He wasn't Zod and wasn't going to kill or even threaten someone weaker than him. He _was_, however, going to make a point today. Just because he didn't choose to abuse his power didn't mean he was powerless. With an exasperated sigh, he drifted down, reached out to crimp the barrel of the gun with his hand, and then returned the phone to James, who looked more than a little stunned at the gesture.

Without a word, he leaped into the sky again, moving as quickly as he could to evade anything that might track him. He'd had enough of the games and shadows. Lois had been a sitting duck for months and, for once, he was going to prove that she wasn't a weakness. He could protect her, and she could disappear if he wanted her to.

He could hear the wail of sirens, no doubt cops responding to reports of gunfire, and ducked onto Lois' balcony. She'd uncharacteristically left it unlocked the night before, so he slid the door open and moved faster than sight into her bedroom. She was asleep despite the chaos on the street, breathing so deeply it bordered on a snore, and he whooshed around the room, systematically destroying every single device planted there. Her cell phone was charging on her nightstand, so he unplugged it and pulled out the battery. If he were here as Clark, he would have kissed her awake, but he was wearing the suit, and so he clamped his hand down over her mouth again.

Lois jumped awake, took in his attire, took in the fact that he was even there, and her serious gaze met his. Releasing her, he leaned close and softly said, "Get dressed."

Lois immediately slipped out from between her covers. She apparently wasn't embarrassed to be running around in front of him in just a pink camisole and panties, but he blushed as he turned away. (Though, admittedly, he had never been more grateful for his photographic memory.)

Forcing himself to focus on the task at hand, he moved on to her bathroom and linen closet, leaving a trail of destroyed devices in his wake.

"Dress code?" she called after him. "Marathon? Evening gown?"

In a blur, he was in her bedroom again (where she was _still _unabashedly standing in her underwear in front of her open closet). Whispering in her ear, he said, "Something casual and comfortable." Then he was gone again.

Faster than sight, he cleaned out her apartment of anything that shouldn't be there, then started considering those things that should. She didn't have a landline, but she did have a tablet, a Bluetooth, a web-enabled camera, a network printer, and a web-enabled TV, not to mention all the other communication bells and whistles on her laptop. He crushed the Bluetooth, pulled the batteries out of the camera, and then considered her tablet. Today was about making statements, and it wasn't enough for her to disappear. There was no way to remove the battery, and he was officially kicking them out of her apartment, even if only for a day. They needed to know they had gone too far. He flipped the laptop over and pulled the battery from it, too.

Lois came running into the kitchen as he removed the memory from the tablet (actually dressed this time, to both his relief and disappointment). Placing the SD card on the table, he held the device up. "Anything on this that's not replaceable?"

She shook her head no, and he said, "Pull up the camera. Please." She quickly did and handed it to him. Looking directly into the webcam, he sternly said, "Enough." He let the fury in his heart burn in his eyes and melted the tablet into something unrecognizable. When his gaze had cooled, he looked at Lois again. "I'll buy you a new one later, I promise." Then he unplugged the TV, router, and printer.

Lois snapped her gaping mouth shut. He grabbed her parka and held it for her to put it on, but before sliding her arms into the sleeves, she wordlessly held up a large messenger bag, a question in her eyes. He X-rayed it, and it was full of everything a person might need for 24 hours - a change of clothes, toiletries, money, a disassembled pay-by-the-minute phone, a notepad and several pens. There were several bugs sewn into it, but the batteries had all died. A flicker of a smile almost made it to his face when he realized what it didn't have - no other electronics, no credit cards, nothing traceable.

He gave her a curt nod of approval and then he was helping her into her parka. She stomped into her boots and pulled on her gloves and hat in taut, efficient silence. Gathering her into his arms, he flew out her open balcony door, moving as quickly as he dared considering the human he held. Turning mid-air so that he could create a sheltering wake for her, he shot across the sky.

"So...eventful morning?" she guessed.

"You could say that."

"End of the free world?" she tried, teasing only a little.

"You could say that."

She frowned slightly. "I'm not clear, am I."

"I've destroyed any monitoring devices, if that's what you're wondering."

"Then why kidnap me after..."

"They upped their game."

"Oh." She considered that in silence for a moment. "So you're whisking me to safety?"

He finally gave her a tiny smile, knowing he'd been caught but also reasonably sure she'd forgive him for it. "I know better than to assume you need rescuing. Today is about making a point."

"And that point would be...?"

"You aren't an acceptable target." And then, because he was still Clark to her, even like this, he added, "If you're willing to up our game, too, I want to take you off the grid for the day. Make you disappear. Show them that we're only tolerating their stupidity."

"You're going to trash another big rig, aren't you?" she asked, a smirk in her voice.

"I'm not entirely sure yet...but the day _is_ young."

Chuckling softly, she rested her head in the crook of his neck, and Clark allowed himself to focus on her touch. It soothed away some of his anger, though what remained hardened into something stronger than steel. She didn't need his protection (she'd already proven that), but _he _needed to protect her. He was grateful that, this time anyway, she was willing to indulge him.

It was frustrating moving so slow, so he started looking for something that would shelter her more. A flying car would be rather obvious, though that would undoubtedly make for the safest means to transport her, and at this point, speed was his most important issue. He touched down in a large, wooded park and set her on her feet. "Wait here - I'll be right back."

"Okay," she immediately answered.

He shot heavenward, and as an afterthought, scanned the sky for drones. There were two of them potentially close enough to see their escape from Metropolis, and he sped after the nearest one. When he got close enough, he grabbed it by the tailfin and swung it around, whirling faster and faster until he discus-threw it spinning across the sky. Once again he felt the fierce satisfaction of striking back after so many months of frustration. After throwing the second drone off course, he dropped back down into the city. It took him less than a minute to find a dilapidated junkyard - one without internal security cameras - and only a second more to find the beat-up compact car he was after.

He was back by Lois in a matter of heartbeats and set it on the ground beside her.

"We're skipping town in a rusted Geo Metro?" she doubtfully ask, already climbing in.

"_You're _skipping town in it. I'm propulsion."

"Ah," she said.

He shrugged out of the string backpack he had hidden under his cape; it held his clothes from the construction site, since he'd taken to the air as soon as he was able. He tossed it into the back seat. "I'm not exactly sure about human tolerances for free flight like this, so if it gets to be too much, let me know."

"Okay."

"And buckle up," he said as he closed the door for her. Then he hefted the car over his head, gripped the frame, and lifted off again. He had to accelerate slowly, but he was able to get up to over three hundred miles per hour before Lois said, "I think that's my limit."

Another ten minutes passed before she asked, "So where exactly are you taking me?"

"A small-town library," he answered, raising his voice against the rushing wind. "One I'd picked out several months ago."

"Didn't catch a word of that. Sorry. Just tell me when we get to where we're going. But there better be coffee _somewhere _in your master plan, flyboy."

Grinning despite himself, he made a mental note to scope out the town long enough to know where she could find some. He kept an eye on her as they skimmed along just a few hundred feet above the trees, and to his bafflement, she tipped her seat back and fell asleep about half an hour later. Between growing up on a farm and requiring much less sleep than an average human, he just took it for granted that you could wake someone up at 7:30 a.m. and they'd be able to start the day.

He kept away from roads and cities as much as possible, which made their trip longer but hopefully kept them out of sight more. Two hours later, he gradually started slowing until they drifted to a stop on a broken-up two-lane road. It was lined by snow-covered pines that, in the gray light of the overcast morning, looked desolate even to him. This time, certain that they weren't being watched, he opened the door, knelt beside it, and leaned close to kiss her softly. "Wake up, sleepy head."

She groggily sat up and met his gaze with a sleepy smile. "Smooth landing. I'll fly Air Kent anytime."

All he could manage was a half-smile, and Lois seemed to finally focus on their surroundings. "So where are we and what's my cover story?" she asked as she climbed out of the car.

"We're about a quarter-mile outside a little town called Cascade Springs," he answered, pointing ahead. "It's more of a village, I guess. About 2000 people. There's a library without a surveillance system downtown. There's also a small grocery store a couple of blocks from the library, and they have a snack bar where you can get some breakfast and coffee."

"You're not coming with me?".

He shook his head, all the urgency of the morning crashing down on him again. "I have to go get Mom."

Lois nodded curtly, and he shot heavenward, able to move at full speed again.


	11. Contract

Superman hadn't made any appearances in Smallville since the battle, but as Clark, he'd done all he could to help his hometown recover from the attack, because even if they'd never truly accepted him, it was still his home. The first twelve hours after Zod's death, he'd spent digging through the rubble there, helping with the rescue.

When Clark had showed up at the emergency staging area and volunteered to help, he was pretty sure that Doug Parker, Smallville's chief of police, knew his secret. Doug was the one who had picked up Lois from the crater in the cornfield and who had brought her to the Kent farm at her request. He had seen Clark dressed as Superman talking to Martha on her front porch, and Lois had called out to him by name.

But as night fell over Smallville's battered downtown, Doug had simply thanked him for volunteering, shook Clark's hand, and put him to work. When Clark insisted that they dig through the rubble at specific places, Doug gave the order, and soon the men working beside Clark didn't even need the order. If any of them noticed that he could lift beams or broken concrete slabs that wouldn't budge for two or even three men, no one voiced any suspicions that he was Superman. He wasn't sure if that was because of Doug's leadership or if it was something deeper, but either way, he was grateful.

Miraculously, only two people had died, Mike Melbourn at the silo when it blew and Becky Nathans when the locomotive engine was thrown into the Sears store. By himself, Clark retrieved them one at a time after everyone else was accounted for and carried their bodies to their anxiously-waiting families at the staging area. Then he'd sat down heavily on a piece of nearby rubble and wept for the second time that day. Eventually Pete came and sat beside him, offering an almost-awkward silent support.

Clark divided his time between Metropolis and Smallville until there weren't any more survivors to be found, and then he focused on his hometown. By and large, he blended in with the scores of volunteers who poured into Smallville over the next several weeks to help. Besides Doug, there were others who remembered the bus accident, who remembered other odd things Clark had done, and who knew that the state never was able to find his birth mother before he was adopted. They worked beside him every day without any concern or misgiving that he could perceive. In fact, the residents of Smallville seemed _more _open and welcoming to him than ever before.

With him "kidnapping" Lois today, though, he wasn't sure how they might respond or if that new good will would extend to his mother. Still, something told him that she'd be hidden away somewhere in Smallville if she'd already gone to work before Lois' stalkers closed in. Pete and Doug, at least, would do everything in their power to keep her safe. If she'd still been at home, though, there was no telling what could have happened to her.

So as Clark raced the sun westward, he hoped that his mom was already in Smallville.

To his surprise, the farm was quiet when he drew close enough to see. Martha was out in the orchard, inspecting the apricot tree, and there weren't any out-of-place vehicles anywhere in sight. As he swooped lower, he noticed that there were some listening devices in the house and barn now – a recent development since his move to Metropolis - but that was about it. A drone was patrolling the sky higher up, but no helicopters or fighters of any kind.

They suspected, then, but hadn't made any moves against his mom. Considering his mood today, that was very lucky for them. Maybe they'd realized that.

He flew over Smallville in a search pattern for a few minutes, trying to decide whether he should kidnap her, too. If they didn't already know her relationship to him, it would confirm it. If they did already know, they could have taken her into custody hours ago and didn't. That in itself was so unexpected that it made him hesitate. It didn't fit with what he believed Lois' stalkers were after, and until he wrapped his mind around it, he didn't want to disturb the strange detente. Against his better judgment, he decided to take a calculated risk and leave her there, promising himself he'd come back to check on her after he made sure Lois was safely settled in at the library.

After a brief stop at the Geo to change into some less-conspicuous clothes, he walked back into the town of Cascade Springs. Lois was still at the grocery store's snack bar, nursing a large cup of coffee. She glanced up when he walked in, but her eyes tightened with worry when she saw he was alone. He gave her as reassuring a smile as he could and sat down opposite her. "She's okay, for the moment."

"Where is she?"

"Still on the farm. They've left her alone."

Lois frowned thoughtfully as she took another sip of coffee.

"Yeah," he said in answer to her expression. "I don't get it either."

"So what's our story?" she asked.

"Story?"

"Yeah. Like, our stupid Geo Metro broke down outside of town and we're stuck here until we can get it fixed. So I'm hanging out in the library and the stores in town trying to stay warm while you're working on it. I'm Dolores Rhode and you're my brother Joe."

He raised his eyebrow at being called her brother. "If this is payback for the thing about brunettes..."

She gave him a playful smile. "Maybe a little bit. But mostly, they'll be looking for friends or a romantic couple travelling. They won't expect siblings."

He nodded in agreement.

"I'm starting to have tech withdrawal. I need to know what's going on out there. Don't suppose your podunk library has an internet connection? I'd settle for your mom's dial-up at this point."

"That's why I chose it, _Dolores_," he pointed out, "so I could email a certain big-city girl."

"Right," she answered, rubbing her tired eyes. "So...you want a quick breakfast before we go? They have rotisserie chickens and loaves of garlic bread. I think I saw a decent-sized watermelon, too."

He chuckled and shook his head. "The sun is still up. I'll be fine. Let's go."

The February wind idly stirred the snow at their feet as they walked, and Lois leaned closer to Clark. He smiled and put his arm around her. She gave him a warning look, and he said, "I'm just keeping my sister warm. Besides, nobody's out walking around in this cold but us."

She rolled her eyes but didn't pull away. "So...how did they up their game?"

Clark took a deep, calming breath. "They're letting up on the high-tech spying and going for the old-school strategies, at least at your place. They had a stakeout set up in an apartment across from yours." He couldn't hide the anger in his voice when he added, "They had a telescope pointed at your bedroom."

She looked up at him. "Is that the first time they've done that?"

"It's the first time I'd seen them, but I don't think it was in response to the interview, if that's what you're wondering. At least, not in response to what we said in it. It had probably been going on for several days. Maybe longer, judging by the fast-food debris."

"Probably?"

He shrugged. "I generally try to _avoid _being a peeping tom."

A smile flickered across her face before she said, "What about at the Planet?"

He softly snorted. "It's almost as bad as that first week at your place. There are bugs everywhere I looked, but the vast majority isn't hardwired, so unless they restock or swap out batteries, I'd give it two weeks tops before those are all dead."

"They just bugged it ahead of our exclusive," she concluded. "What about the ones that _are _hardwired? Where are they?"

"A camera and audio device both at your desk and in Mr. White's office."

She scowled at that, leaning away from him, and Clark tipped his head curiously. "It's one thing to spy on me at home," she explained. "I'm an investigative journalist and I've done a stakeout or two myself. Taking it to the Planet, though...That's crossing the line," she practically growled.

Clark shook his head in disbelief. "So them seeing you in your underwear isn't as bad as them reading your drafts?"

She dodged his gaze, glaring at the snow. "The drafts are more revealing."

They walked in silence for several minutes then, Lois silently nursing a growing grudge and Clark comparing her last statement with his own memories of the morning and just being unable to reconcile the two.

"Here we are," he finally said, and opened the library door for her.

Once inside, Lois paid the fee to use one of the two computers the library had, giving the librarian with a name tag "Jamie Sue" their story about a broken-down car and her wanting to hang out there to stay warm while her brother fixed it. Jamie Sue looked skeptically from the tall, dark-haired, and physically imposing Clark to the slender, strawberry-blond Lois, and improvising, Clark amiably added, "Step-brother. But we're close enough we claim each other as the real thing."

"Ah," Jamie Sue replied.

Once her curiosity was satisfied, Lois and Clark both huddled in front of the computer while Lois ran a few car repair searches for the look of the thing. After twenty minutes, she printed some of the suggestions for him.

While he folded and pocketed the pages, she snuck a peek at the Daily Planet's website. To her surprise, the big headline of the day was, "Lois Lane Kidnapped by Superman?"

She softly swore and Clark returned to read over her shoulder. The article detailed the incident at the apartment opposite Lois' and she looked up at him in surprise. "You attacked them?"

"I attacked their equipment," Clark clarified. "_They _were never in any danger."

"_They _probably didn't know that."

He shrugged, though a hint of a smirk played across his lips, and she shook her head at him before reading on. "Who wrote this?" Lois complained as the article went into the "gun battle" in the parking lot only minutes later. "Lombard. Figures. Seriously, how do you have a 'gun battle' with Superman?"

"You shoot at him and get killed by the ricochet?" Clark answered, pleased when that earned him an amused snort.

To his relief, the article didn't say anything about flying Geo Metros or even the direction they'd gone when they left Metropolis, other than to speculate that Kansas might be involved somehow. That part made him extremely grateful he hadn't interfered on the farm.

The rest of the story was devoted to calling for calm and asking the public's assistance in finding Lois. Fortunately, the photo they used for her was from her Daily Planet bio, which was two years out of date and showed her with professionally-styled hair and perfect make-up. Even Clark admitted that any resemblance between the picture and the woman beside him probably wouldn't be helpful to anyone in town.

"There's a disguise for you, Woot," she muttered. "Death warmed over."

Since he was supposed to just be her step-brother, he gently squeezed her shoulder with his hand. "I don't know. I like how you looked first thing this morning."

She hunched forward in silent laughter before twisting to meet his gaze. "You never cease to surprise me."

He cleared his throat, blushing to his ears. Anything else he said would probably either blow their cover as siblings or get him in all the right kinds of trouble later, so he kept his mouth shut.

Still chortling, she wondered, "If this is what the Planet's running, what garbage is the Metropolis Inquisitor putting out?"

Compared to them, the Daily Planet looked like it was out-and-out rooting for Superman. The Inquisitor had an interactive timeline showing every known event Superman was involved in. Each event had a paragraph or two about it, and they put the worst possible spin on everything. When it came to Lois' disappearance, their speculations ranged from sinister to lewd, and Lois clenched her jaw.

"Is that what people think Superman is really…"

"No, that's just the Inquisitor for you," Lois firmly cut him off.

"But the comments," he protested, pointing to the hundreds of entries it had already received.

"They're scared, and people do stupid things when they're scared. Here..." She logged out of the computer and Clark followed her to a reading table at the back of the library that was even further away from Jamie Sue. He took the chair beside her when she sat down.

She leaned closer to him across the table and, in a low voice, said, "There are people out there who are going to be malicious, but mostly they're just _scared _of you. Not because of what you are but because of what you can do."

"My father told me that hundreds of times when I was growing up," he pointed out. "You're preaching to the choir."

"But it's different now," she insisted. "Besides all the rest, you can literally watch the watchers – that alone is going to freak out a lot of people in Washington. They aren't going to get bored with you or give up on trying to find you. Today might even make it worse, not better."

"Then give me some solutions, Lois. You're the one with the Pulitzer prize."

She frowned thoughtfully for a moment and then said, "They're scared, so you need to show them that they don't need to be afraid of you."

He huffed and mildly glared at the opposite wall. "Oh, is that all?" His whole life he'd terrified people, though remembering the surprising acceptance he'd felt in Smallville since the battle, that same little, moral voice in the back of his mind told him to listen to Lois.

Lois softly chuckled, and he looked at her sharply. "Sorry, it's just something Lucy says all the time that I think might apply here. You and the government both need better boundaries. You said that today was about making statements, so decide what you can and can't live with and let them know. If they know the rules you're playing by - or that you'll play by _any_ rules - it'll probably help them be less scared."

He grimaced. "It isn't playing fair if you're using my own words against me."

"Oh, I can do better than that," she smirked. "Remember the social contract you mentioned in the interview? You run around saving people hoping that they'll start to trust you, but sooner or later, you're going to have to start trusting humanity. If you really want in on that contract."

"That's not the same as trusting the government," he almost growled.

"So make it about trusting an individual." After a pause, she suggested, "General Swanwick."

Her words hit home and it eased some of his frustration with the whole situation. It had been tentative, under duress really, but Swanwick _had _trusted him.

"You just need to reciprocate now."

"And if my naive trust gets you killed?"

She narrowed her eyes at him defiantly. "Okay, firstly, I've waltzed into war zones for less-important things than you. Secondly, killing me and your mom would be the absolute _stupidest _thing anybody could do. It would gut your soul, turn you into another Zod. That's probably why they didn't threaten her today. Until they _have _to control you, why play that card?"

"And when they _do _play that card?" Clark demanded.

Her gaze softened. "We'll burn that bridge when we get there. Honestly, it'll probably be something big enough that you'd help anyway. If you can build rapport while it's still a matter of trust, there's an outside chance they might never play that card."

"_You_ might be willing to risk your life on an 'outside chance' but..." He looked down and fell silent, barely able to think about her dying, much less talk about it. It was hard enough after his dad died; his decision then had haunted him for years. He'd already endured that hell and the thought of losing _Lois _because she insisted on protecting him was just...unbearable. Even more disturbing was the thought of actually having someone to blame for it. He couldn't retaliate against a tornado, but Lois' blunt words about becoming like Zod were truer than he cared to admit. It was frighteningly easy to imagine killing someone who had murdered Lois or his mom.

"Sooner or later, they'll figure out where you hang your cape," she pointed out. "Besides the drones and the security cameras around the city and the bugs around me and your mom, there's facial recognition software, voice-prints, DNA... It's only a matter of time. Unless you want to spend the rest of your life hiding in the shadows, you're going to have to accept that some people will know your secret."

The desolation he felt then was almost as bad as that day in the train station. He wasn't willing to accept that the two most important women in the world (as far as he was concerned) were fair game, or at least, he wasn't willing to concede the point to Lois' stalkers yet. But he'd asked for Lois' advice and, like she pointed out at Christmas, if he asked for it, he should at least give it a chance.

Her eyes softened with compassion and she laid her hand over his. "I know this is hard for you. It'd be hard for anyone, and you've spent your entire life hiding."

Her touch took the wind out of his sails and, more defeated than defensive, he asked, "So what are you suggesting, that I announce to the world who I am?"

She shook her head. "Even with today's coverage, nobody has mentioned Clark Kent. If they're going to keep that secret, then you should, too, as long as you can. But don't live your life in fear." A hint of a smile flitted across her lips. "Jean's Beans needs you."

He raised an eyebrow at that, and she dodged his gaze before admitting, "Or at least, their best customer does."

She glanced back up, and the shy vulnerability in her eyes made him smile even before the words sunk in. In her roundabout way, she'd just told him she needed him, and impossibly, the knowledge made him feel stronger. Or maybe it was just her hand on his.

The first time she held his hand, he'd been struck by the acceptance and compassion of the gesture. He had been going to what very well could have been his death in order to save the human race, and she alone had reached out to him. Literally.

But because it was _her_ - the woman who had the drive and intelligence to find him when he'd successfully hidden for more than a decade, the woman who threw away one of the biggest stories imaginable in order to protect him - he had let himself truly feel her touch in ways only he could.

When he was little and his powers were just starting to manifest themselves, the only way he could articulate to his parents why it was so unsettling for him to touch other people was that he could read their souls. Something about the feel of their skin was almost frighteningly intimate. It went beyond the purely tactile sensation of the soft texture, the pulse fluttering away just below the surface, or the moisture. Later, as he learned all he could about the human body trying to understand what was happening to his own, he suspected it had to do with something far more fundamental. The skin communicated in a complex, subconscious interaction of temperature, vasodilation, electrical impulses, and chemistry and, theology aside, Clark wondered if 'reading a soul' wasn't as far off the mark as he'd once thought.

Until he'd learned to hone his senses, the only people he would voluntarily allow skin-on-skin contact with were his parents. No matter how intense it was, he always welcomed their touch - hugging, touching hands, tickling. Their souls were solid, strong, and kind. Pete had been a surprise, though. There was a day when Whitney Fordham had shoved Clark to the ground, bullying him with a group of his friends, and after they left, Pete had offered him a hand up. When he accepted that proffered hand, he sensed Pete's respect for and confidence in him and that moment had forever altered Clark's perception of him.

Touching the murderous Zod in the train station had been overwhelming - excruciating, soul-marring - despite Clark's focus. Worse, he'd _felt _him die when he snapped the other man's neck. Lois' touch that day had been the only thing that held him together in the aftermath.

But now, with Lois holding his hand, he could sense again how _beautiful _her soul was. She was wistful, reluctant to part with him, but also filled with a growing, driven excitement he didn't quite understand. Underpinning it all was affection and confidence and bone-deep compassion.

He would do anything for her, and finding a way into the circle of her daily life wasn't even a sacrifice. "Who am I to keep Jean's Beans' best customer waiting, then?"

She seemed to pull herself together and the vulnerability was gone, replaced with the kind of smile that he'd come to live for. "Go on," she encouraged him, nodding toward the library door. "Go take care of what you need to - check on your mom, find Swanwick, save a sinking boat. I've got a library to keep me company, and I have some writing to do, too, since Lombard wouldn't notice a good story if it bit him." Letting go of his hand, she meaningfully patted the messenger bag she still carried, the one containing pens and a notepad. "Perry will need _something _decent to print when I get back."

She lived and breathed her profession, he knew. He'd read everything of hers that he could get his hands on, partly because the best way to acquire any skill was to study a master, but mostly because her writing, though edited, was distilled _Lois_. She was passionate, but just as importantly, she was focused and intelligent. Her mind was like a sword, sharp and dangerous when necessary, but she wielded it with the intent to illuminate and to right wrongs. Her prose soared, carrying the reader through whatever moved her, whether it was grief, compassion, indignation or awe. If she already had an article or an exposé running around in her brain today, she'd be fine waiting here for him. If anything, she'd welcome the alone-time to write.

"I'll be back as soon as I can," he promised.

Her eyes sparkled in a way that warmed him all the way to his toes. "I know. Otherwise I wouldn't let you go."


	12. Pen and Sword

Author's Note: Firstly, thanks so much to those who have reviewed this fic and added it to your favorites and follows. I promise I won't give up on this fic, and your encouragement keeps me writing! :)

Secondly, I have to confess that I haven't (yet) read the official novelization of the movie, so I'm going to have to ignore that canon source for now.

Finally, while some of what happens in this fic could be considered political, let me assure you it's a case of art imitating life. I have no ax to grind and I didn't sit down to write intending to make a statement. I just can't imagine Lois reacting any differently. Hope you enjoy!

* * *

As he walked under the weak, winter sun, Clark turned over in his mind the advice Lois had given him. All while he'd been growing up, his father had said that people would be afraid and unsettled by who he was - an alien. He'd never truly sat back and considered what humanity's response might be _after _that revelation.

He'd assumed all along that the government agents stalking Lois were simply out to control him, that they were looking for the buttons that would make him jump, and that they would take advantage of any Achilles' heel as soon as they discovered it. Between the government leaving his mom alone and the fact that _nobody _was talking about Clark Kent today, he realized he'd misjudged the situation.

_He _had been so scared that he hadn't considered other possibilities. What if they were trying to track him so that they could protect humanity, not so they could control him?

Partly because of the way he'd been raised, he had never seriously entertained the idea of world domination, though stepping back and looking at himself objectively, he realized he had that capacity. Zod would have accomplished just that if Clark hadn't defied him. Why would anyone assume he _wasn't_ a danger to humanity? He'd told them repeatedly, true, and he'd stopped Zod, but that didn't necessarily make him _safe_.

_Is that all it would take?_ he wondered. _Convince them I'm safe?_ But then he remembered Lois' comment about people in Washington freaking out because of his abilities, and he knew that those individuals would never be truly safe from him. He would always have his powers, and while he would never intentionally harm a human being, Lois' stalkers and their like would never be safe from discovery as long as he lived.

She had described him well in that regard; he was a watcher of the watchers. It was a role he'd fallen into naturally, and it was a role that the US government (and quite possibly other governments, too) had assigned to him. That was the contract they were building and so now he needed to figure out the terms he could live with.

His Superman persona aside, Clark needed to not pretend to be something he wasn't. He _was _dangerous, without question. He'd played that card just a few hours ago with the peeping toms outside Lois' apartment. Denying it would be a lie and everyone would know it.

So he needed to be a safe kind of dangerous (as odd as that sounded even in his own head), at least as far as the governments of the world were concerned. Ideally, their own militaries were that safe kind of dangerous, or at least, the US military was, and the US government was the one he had to convince first. That didn't really help, however. He wasn't a soldier who would follow orders, and he wouldn't let them turn him into one.

He couldn't be the law enforcement kind of safe-dangerous for the same reason. They also had to follow orders, though Clark didn't think of himself as a vigilante, either. He wanted to work within the law and side-by-side with those in power, so long as he agreed with those laws and his involvement wouldn't empower the wrong people. If he didn't agree with them...well, he wouldn't work with them. He wasn't sure if he would actually refuse to help (and so far, that hadn't been an issue), though that would probably be the best course if push came to shove.

Clark couldn't be safe-dangerous by simply remaining passive, either. He couldn't be just another citizen, someone who could hold back and not act until asked. Even when he was drifting, he'd never hesitated to help when he saw a need.

He arrived at the Geo and, as he changed into the suit, he realized that - once again - he wasn't entirely sure what he was.

Taking to the air, Clark turned his focus to the more immediate problem of how to find General Swanwick. He decided his best bet would be to start at the same base where Lois had been held captive, and so he headed west again, using it as an excuse to check in on his mom on the way.

She was still at home, and it made Clark frown thoughtfully. This wasn't her normal day off, but she looked okay, reading a magazine on the recliner and listening to the radio. It was entirely possible she had switched shifts and hadn't bothered to tell him since she had no idea he'd be turning the NSA or whoever on its ear today. Just to be doubly sure, he surveyed the neighboring farms from higher up, and again, there were no out-of-place vehicles or suspicious-looking people. Searching the surrounding skies, he didn't see anything besides a few commercial jets in the distance. Almost directly above him, though, a pair of ever-present drones made a circuit around the town. They reminded him vaguely of vultures, but something about the shape of one them made him narrow his eyes and his focus.

It was weaponized.

Like seeing the stalkers ogling Lois, those missiles immediately and irrevocably changed the rules. It was one thing to watch; it was something completely different _threaten_. His mother, his home, his town all had a sword hanging over their heads, and he would remove it _now_.

He shot upward, breaking the sound barrier three times before catching the weaponized one by the tail fin. Swanwick would know who was behind this. Frankly, Clark didn't care who it was as long as Superman left enough of an impression - _no one _was to threaten his home or family again. If they wanted him to be anything _but _dangerous, they needed to know that was one rule he wouldn't tolerate being broken. He could personally, with his own hands and in a matter of hours if not minutes, destroy every single military drone and spy satellite owned by the US government. This was going to backfire in their faces if they kept it up, and they needed to know that. Threats of violence were not the way to make him do what they wanted.

Compassion was.

The thought (spoken by that inner, moral, maternal voice) blindsided him, and he actually hesitated midflight. The button that made him jump was someone being in danger. He was a rescuer by nature. But how to show them that when his every public act had been to help others and they _still _distrusted him?

Frustrated and angry, he pushed that thought to the back of his mind and turned westward again, hauling the stricken drone behind him.

His reception at the base was only slightly less hostile than the first time he'd come unannounced. There weren't any tanks, but there were still plenty of small arms pointed at him as he hovered twenty feet in the air with the drone balanced on his right shoulder.

"I'm here to speak with General Swanwick," Superman announced, his voice ringing with authority.

"He's not here," the colonel apparently in charge responded. Thanks to Lois' insight, he recognized the timbre of fear in the man's voice for what it was.

"Where is he?" he demanded a little more gently.

"That's classified."

Superman remained impassive, though Clark felt a spike of genuine anger at that. Lois wasn't even allowed to bathe in peace but they had the gall to give him an answer like that? Instead, he asked a more practical question. "How soon can he get here?"

The colonel looked at a major who whispered, "An hour and a half if Captain Farris drives like she's got a subordinate in the car instead her chain of command."

With sharp twitch of a nod, the colonel looked back at Superman and said, "Two hours. We can accommodate you if you're willing to wait..."

"Not today," Superman curtly answered and shot into the sky again.

Surveying the surrounding territory, he mused, _two hours or less by car_. That was a fairly large radius from the base and included an actual city. He decided to start searching in the more remote mountainous areas further out and then work his way toward to the base when that radius would be smaller and General Swanwick would be that much closer.

As he flew, Clark tried to go over in his mind what he could possibly say to the general that would work when nothing else he'd said and done over the last six months had. It was hard when that aggravating statement of "That's classified" kept nudging its way back into the fore of his mind, and unfortunately, he stumbled across their car before he'd found the words he wanted to say.

Instead, he slung the drone nose-first at the ground, deliberately aiming it far enough away from the car that there was no risk of Swanwick or his driver getting hurt.

Still, the general was visibly upset when he climbed out of his car. "Are you effing _stupid_?" he bellowed.

Clark wanted to ask him the same thing, but instead settled for smugly commenting on the debris separating them. "One of your surveillance drones."

"That's a twelve-million dollar piece of hardware!"

"It _was_," Superman answered. "I know you're trying to find out where I hang my cape. You won't." He didn't deign to add, "That's classified."

"Then I'll ask the obvious question," Swanwick answered. "How do we know you won't one day act against America's interests?"

Exasperated, Clark pointed toward the east and reminded him, "I grew up in Kansas, General. I'm about as American as it gets."

His skeptical expression made it clear Swanwick wasn't impressed.

Trying again, Clark echoed what he'd told Lois just yesterday, "Look, I'm here to help, but it has to be on my own terms." Superman wouldn't stoop to pleading, but Clark came about as close to it as the suit would allow. "And you need to convince your friends in Washington of that."

"Even if I were inclined to try, what makes you think they'd listen?"

Suddenly Clark had his answer. The social contract meant nothing without _trust_ as the earnest money. "I don't know, General," he answered, softening a little. "I guess I'm just going to have to trust you."

When Clark took off again, an idea began taking shape in his mind. The human spirit was great, capable of equaling the best nobility Krypton could engineer, and his inherited life-mission was to inspire humanity to live up to that greatness. He knew there was risk involved, but if it worked, it could be the solution to so many problems, not the least of which was how he was supposed to live up to both his fathers' expectations. Turning east, he veered slightly south, heading for Kansas and home.

If Lois was right about them being more scared of his abilities than his ancestry, then hopefully his decision to be the first to trust would help alleviate some of that fear. Potentially, he could even make allies like he had with Colonel Hardy. The real problem was the people who _would _be malicious. But now that he was compartmentalizing Lois' stalkers into those two groups, another potential solution became clear.

With living in Metropolis, he was close enough to keep a protective eye on Lois, but that left his mom much more vulnerable. _If _- and that was a big if - the people on the other end of those spy cameras could be trusted, he'd actually feel a lot better about his move to the city. If he could make this unwritten social contract work, it was entirely possible that his mom and Lois would end up the two most-protected human beings in the United States.

Of course, bombing a general with his own spy plane probably wasn't the best way to go about building trust and rapport (no matter how satisfying it felt). Something more was needed, and the sooner the better.

When he reached the farm, he flitted through the old house faster than sight, disabling all of the cameras and bugs on the interior of the house.

"Clark?"

Of course she would have noticed the stirring of the air as he moved. He hurried to her side. "Hi, Mom."

She stood and threw her arms around him with a deep, relieved sigh. "I've been watching the news. Sounds like you've had quite the day, son."

He rested his cheek against the top of her head. "Yeah, it's been a busy one." Stepping back, he added, "But there's something I need to show you. Grab a coat."

Once she was dressed for the weather, he led her out to the back porch. "See that?" he asked, using his heat-vision (so cool it didn't even damage the wooden siding) to highlight the hidden device. "That's a surveillance camera and microphone. They have them in the barn and watching the front and back porches. Your landline is probably tapped, along with your cell phone."

"Oh," she said, dismay and surprise and a hint of anger all packed into that single syllable.

_Now for the lie that will hopefully become truth_, he thought. "The people who have decided to watch you will also be watching out for you, if you want them to."

She eyed him doubtfully. "These the same people who are watching Lois' place?"

"_Were _watching Lois' place, yes. I've spoken with the military about that already, and I'll be around to keep an eye on her. I won't be in the neighborhood of the farm very often anymore, at least relatively. I'd honestly feel better knowing that someone is watching out for you when I can't. These people understand just how important both you and Lois are to me and know what my reaction might be if anything happened to you. But if you want those devices gone, I'll destroy them now."

She tilted her face up curiously, catching the hint of a threat in his words. "Do you trust these people?"

"As far as I can throw them," Superman deadpanned.

She thought about that for a moment before answering, "If it will really make you feel better, and as long as the porches and the barn are it, I'm game. But only because I know how far you can throw."

He smiled in relief, though there was still some lingering worry in his eyes. "Good. Let's get you in out of the cold."

They went inside, but before she shrugged out of her coat, Clark impulsively said, "Would you like to have dinner with Lois? I mean, with me and Lois."

Martha blinked in surprise and owlishly looked around the living room as if she half-expected the other woman to materialize.

"She's still...somewhere safe," Clark clarified. "But it's far enough away that flying you there would take a while. I could get you back here or her back to Metropolis before I have to start my shift, but not both. If you wanted to stay overnight, though, I could bring you home first thing in the morning." As an afterthought, he asked, "When does your shift start tomorrow? And why weren't you at work today?"

"I called in sick today because I _was _sick with worry over you, son. And I'm closing tomorrow, but I don't want to be a third wheel."

Clark reached out to rest his hand on hers, and he could read that she really did want to come with him. "You won't be, I promise. Lois has been wanting to see you again. Pack whatever you need and I'll be right back."

Pausing long enough to tell whoever was watching the front porch, "I'll have her back in the morning," he dashed back to the car and brought it to the farm. It was far enough out from both the house and the barn that Clark was reasonably sure the cameras wouldn't be able to get a clear visual of the Geo. Martha was able to handle slightly faster speeds than Lois, so the flight was only about two and a half hours.

"So what's really going on with those cameras?" Martha asked as she and Clark walked toward town, and he proceeded to fill her in on everything that had happened that day, from him interrupting Lois' stalkers to bombing General Swanwick to his half-baked plan to trust at least some of the people in government. "I should have asked you first, not put you on the spot like that," he admitted.

"They were watching me anyway, and I think Lois is right that some people will be out to get you, though, so all things considered, I think you did the right thing."

Clark sighed with bone-deep relief to hear her say that.

Lois was still in the library, bent over her notepad at the table and furiously writing. She was so engrossed, in fact, that she didn't hear the door chime when they entered and didn't glance up until they were within a few feet of her. She startled when she noticed them, though, and looked up with an expression of such childlike surprise it actually made Clark chuckle.

"The cavalry has arrived," he announced for the sake of the librarian who was curiously watching them. She looked away and blushed, though, when Clark met her gaze. In a lower voice, he said, "You remember my mother Martha, don't you, Dolores?"

"Of course," Lois answered, rising to her feet and, after a handful of heartbeats, awkwardly extended her hand.

Martha shook it, flashing a nervous smile.

"What have you been working on?" Clark asked, glancing at the table which was now cluttered with reference books, loose-leaf notes, and her notepad.

"Want to read it?" she answered, flipping the notebook pages back to the front and handing it to him. "It's still really rough. Pen and paper doesn't have a copy-and-paste option, and a lot of it is still a knee-jerk reaction, kind of like your first piece. I'll push Perry to run it as an Op Ed, though. He'll rein me in as needed, but once he knows what happened to his office, he'll be fit to be tied. _Something _like this will run in the Planet within two days. Trust me."

Unable to resist, Clark playfully said, "I do." Then he silently read her prose, holding the notebook so Martha could see it, too. "I've been aware for a while now that my personal residence and office were being actively monitored, though I'd only recently learned the full depth and breadth of the scrutiny I've been under. For the last six months, day and night, every square inch of my apartment has been monitored, with no end in sight. Just for twenty-four hours, I wanted to take a vacation from the fishbowl and enjoy some privacy, so I asked Superman to take me off the grid.

"Domestic espionage has only intensified since September 11th, but we the people have been repeatedly assured that our civil rights were being maintained, that it was for our own collective security, and that extraordinary times called for extraordinary measures - and concessions - from the American people. By and large, we have accepted that, and by and large, we _have _been protected from terrorists.

"However, since learning that there were eavesdropping devices in my bathroom and men with government ID's were peeping in my bedroom window with a telescope, I am ready to question the wisdom of some of our concessions.

"My first question is what purpose this surveillance serves. Without a warrant available to inspect, I can only speculate. Of myself, I'm not important enough to justify the resources the government has invested in stalking me; the two associations in my life that _are _important enough are Superman and the Daily Planet. The idea of the government attempting to monitor either through me is troubling to say the least.

"To my knowledge, Superman has never intentionally harmed a human being. In the six months since Zod's transmission, not a single story has come to light in which he has physically harmed anyone prior to that day's events, though scores of thank you notes poured in to The Daily Planet when we ran our contest. Considering what we now know he could have done and didn't, that lifetime of pacifism becomes even more remarkable. When the world was threatened, he _chose _to go to what very well could have been his own death in an attempt to save us. In the face of tens of thousands human deaths, it's easy to forget he didn't have to come forward. He could have remained hidden and let the casualties mount; instead, he stepped forward in an attempt to avert disaster and put his own life on the line. These are not the actions of a public enemy, but if the government is monitoring my apartment in the hopes of snaring him, that's exactly how they're treating him.

"Of course, that presupposes that there is something sinister in my stalkers' motives. It could be something more mundane, and the government agents are attempting to simply gather evidence against Superman for some future charges the Justice Department or others are contemplating. That is also problematic, though. In light of all the lives he has saved, it's easy to forget sometimes that Superman is himself a victim of attempted murder. In that case, he'd be treated as a criminal simply because he'd been a target. Such an course takes "blaming the victim" to new lows.

"As outrageous as this behavior is, it becomes outright appalling when the focus shifts to my professional life. My office is also being monitored - not my phone or personal workstation, but my entire office building. The Daily Planet, one of the nation's foremost news sources, is under continuous, minute scrutiny by government agents. Every phone line, every work station, every hallway, every _closet_ is actively monitored. Even the Patriot Act can only be bent so far before it breaks and this overreach becomes the epitome of journalism under oppressive regimes.

"Before leaving on my 24-hour vacation, I wondered what my stalkers would do if I did manage to escape them. If they were an under-the-radar operation, I expected that the scrutiny would increase in anticipation of my return. If the surveillance was legitimate, I thought that perhaps some quiet efforts would be made to locate me, such as my family being informed that I was missing. I suspected that my stalkers would not make any change in their routine, preferring to remain in the shadows.

"I did not anticipate that going off the grid for a day would result in a nationwide manhunt whipped to a frenzy by wild - and grossly unfounded - accusations. My vacation has done far more than uncover an isolated incident of domestic espionage. The civil servants we have voted into office have announced to the world the full scope of our federal government's failure to uphold the Constitution and protect its citizens. Many of the details about my 'kidnapping' could only come from those who had been intimately acquainted with my personal life and were released to the public without any apparent consideration of its impact on me, the 'victim' they were purporting to protect. Throwing the details of a journalist's personal life to the tabloid speculations of the world at large will absolutely have a 'chilling effect' on the free press, without which no people can truly be free.

"Either federal agents are the instigators of this overreaching and - if performed without a warrant - illegal invasion of privacy, or our government has become so cankered and broken that it fails to do what the governments of free nations are supposed to do - protect their law-abiding citizens from the "bad guys" who are indeed out there.

"My travels abroad have shown me that a government that will not submit to the rule of law is in a poor position to demand its citizens be law-abiding. In the case of my stalkers, the only difference between criminal behavior and legitimate surveillance is rule of law, specifically, the Fourth Amendment. So I throw down my gauntlet today: show me the warrant."

Clark let loose a low whistle of surprise. Looking up from the page, he said. "You're not pulling any punches, are you."

She smiled sweetly - deceptively so - as she dropped her pen into her tote. (She'd cleaned up her table and pulled on her hat and gloves while they read.) "You got to evict them from my apartment. I'll kick 'em out of the Planet. That's _my_ territory."

"Remind me to never cross you," he muttered as Martha also finished reading and he closed the notebook, handing it back to her.

The notebook followed the pen into the bag, and Lois' smile shifted into an honest smirk. "Said the kettle to the pot." Looping her arm through his, she glanced at first him and then Martha and said, "Come on, let's go find something to eat."


	13. Definitions

Author's Note: So sorry about the delay! Between getting my kids back to school and a work emergency that lasted for several days, finding writing time was difficult. I expect the next chapter to go up quicker.

Also, I wanted to give a shout-out to Lil'B for the suggestion for Lois' Valentine's Day card for Clark and for the extra encouragement. Many thanks to everyone who has reviewed this fic and added it to their favorites and alerts; your encouragement keeps me writing (sometimes literally). :) Hope you enjoy!

* * *

Clark walked arm in arm with both his mom and Lois in the dying light of the frigid sunset.

"Sorry to be so pushy about dinner," Lois said, "but I lost track of time and never had lunch so I'd like to try out that diner next to the grocery store. Don't mind?"

"I worked through my lunch hour, too," he answered with a reassuring smile. "What about you, Mom?"

"Oh, I was worried sick, remember?" she answered dismissively, though her eyes sparkled. "I didn't eat, either. Dinner sounds great."

"Dinner it is," he declared, feeling like an awkward social fulcrum between the two women. He wanted them to get along - more so with every step - and he wondered what it would take to help it happen. Would he need to step out of that intermediary role and make _himself _the third wheel? As long as they were hitting it off, he decided, he'd be okay with that. Time with Lois was precious, but after everything that happened today, there was a distinct possibility that the government would leave her alone now. Especially if the Daily Planet ran her article, somebody would be committing political suicide by keeping up the surveillance on her.

With a thrill, Clark realized that reporters like Lois were the safe kind of dangerous, too. They were the original watcher of the watchers, and they were answerable to their own conscience, not a superior officer. It was the kind of human role he could honestly see himself filling.

"Were you able to find him?" Lois interrupted his musings, the intensity of her gaze leaving no question that she was asking about General Swanwick.

"I was," Clark slowly answered and, at her expectant look, he went on to explain again how he'd spent his afternoon.

"That might not have been the best way to build rapport with him," Lois observed, echoing his own thoughts.

"Maybe not," Clark conceded, "but it felt good."

When they arrived at the diner, Clark scanned it and was relieved to see there weren't any security cameras.

The host led them to a table before asking if that was okay, but all things considered, Clark decided, it was less awkward than a booth. Like their dinner date at Christmas, they'd have to stick to as mundane topics as possible. They shed their coats and bags (Lois' and Martha's, which Clark had been carrying) and arranged them over the chairs.

"So how are things going on the farm?" Lois asked Martha after the host left.

"Oh, you don't want me to bore you with that," Martha answered with a little smile and a shake of her head.

"Sure I do," the younger woman answered. "Cl...Joe said corn sold high this year. Why was that? Supply and demand, obviously, but…"

"Protein content has an impact, too," Martha answered, flushing slightly with pleasure that Lois was clearly interested, and Clark deliberately kept quiet when she went on to describe all the reasons their grain did so well that year, from droughts elsewhere to a rebound in the demand for pork.

She only stopped when the waitress arrived.

"Can I get you started with anything?" she asked after introducing herself as Amanda.

"I'll have a Heineken," Clark said, and Lois' eyebrows raised almost to her hairline in surprise.

Martha ordered a Coke, and recovering slightly, Lois said she'd have what Clark was having and ordered some bread sticks and chicken tenders for appetizers, too.

After Amanda left, Lois demanded in a whisper, "You'll drink alcohol but not Kool-aid?"

He shrugged, fighting a grin. "There's no food coloring in it."

Martha coughed on a laugh.

Lois chuckled softly and leaned back in her chair. "So what other surprises do you have for me, Joe?"

"Let's see...I got an apartment in Metropolis," he informed her, and she sat bolt upright again.

"You did?" she demanded, her eyes wide and bright. "Here…" She leaned over to open her tote and tore a piece of paper out of her notebook. Eagerly pushing it and a pen across the table toward him, she said, "Write down your address and I'll memorize it before I go home. Phone number, too, if you have one."

He jotted it down, and she was squirming in her seat with excitement when she accepted it back from him.

"I have a roommate," he warned her. "The phone number and utilities and everything are under his name."

"Which means your name is conveniently not associated with your home at all," Lois observed with approval.

He nodded in agreement before continuing, "I'm working the night shift at the construction site downtown." In a quieter voice, he added, "It seemed...fitting that I would help rebuild what was destroyed because of me." Shaking off the thought, he continued, "Anyway, he works days, so we don't really see each other. I just pay him my part of the rent and utilities and keep the fridge stocked."

With a rueful smile, Lois said, "So close yet so far. I could take the subway to your place from the Daily Planet and be there in fifteen minutes, but…"

"But your stalkers would follow you right to me," he finished for her.

"At least I _know _now, though," she said, the light in her eyes warming with hope. "I know how to find you if I need to. That's worth a lot."

The waitress arrived with their drinks and appetizers, and Clark had downed a full breadstick before Lois said, "I think it might be a good idea if we broke up, for want of a better term."

His head jerked up, and he could swear his heart stopped.

"_Online_," she clarified. "If you're living...in town, I don't need to email you if I really need to find you."

Affection for her made him smile. "If you really needed to find me, I'd already be there."

Out of the corner of his eye, Clark saw his mom shift, and he glanced her way. She was grinning like a Cheshire cat, and her eyes were dancing with amusement.

"Did he learn pick-up lines like that from Jonathan?" Lois asked her, fighting a smile of her own.

She shook her head. "No, that one was _all _Cl...Joe."

"_Anyway_," Clark said, "my point is that you're right and we don't really need to email each other anymore. If you think breaking up would throw them off the scent even more, maybe we should. If we can make it believable."

"Leave that one to me," Lois confidently answered, taking a bite of her breadstick. After chewing thoughtfully for a moment, she asked in a low voice, "So how does the thing with the sunlight work? Do you only get hungry when the sun goes down? Do you even _have _blood sugar?"

Martha glanced up curiously at Clark and he rolled his eyes as he blinked. "Yes, she grills me like this all the time." To Lois, he said, "I think I have blood sugar, but I've never noticed a massive plummet. I got a sugar buzz just like any other kid when I was little, though my buzz tended to be a bit faster and higher than other kids' or so I'm told." That last part was said with a sidelong smile at Martha. "I think the solar energy is almost a different system, something a little more direct. Mostly I don't notice I'm hungry, as long as I've got the energy pouring into me, but I can and do eat whenever."

"I can testify of that," Martha added with a fond smile.

"What's his record?" Lois eagerly asked.

"A twenty-pound bag of potatoes in one day."

She guffawed, and Clark pointed out, "I was _trying _to see if I could do it. And I threw up after I finished it, so I don't think the last three potatoes count."

Lois laughed even harder at that.

Trying to make himself the third wheel, Clark said to Martha, "Tell her about that one and only solo birthday party."

His mom went on to regale Lois with the story of when Clark was five-years-old and went alone to their neighbor's birthday party. His powers weren't really starting to manifest themselves, but he was unusually fast. Sprinting, he could keep pace with Martha, and when he was in a chatty mood, he talked so fast it was hard to understand him. Martha had been so worried about Clark's health when he was a baby that she'd been very careful with his nutrition. This party was the first time he'd gotten really sugared up and he'd ended up literally running from room to room until he was sent outside where he ran around the house for ten minutes solid until the neighbor finally called Martha. He fell asleep a half hour later and and didn't wake up until the next morning.

Lois stole a glance up at him, her eyes sparkling, and Clark grinned in answer.

The waitress brought their meals, and after that, dinner conversation turned more to Lois. At first, Clark was grateful his mom had chosen to ask her for more details about her own life - where she grew up, what her favorite colors were and why, what her favorite comfort foods were. It was always fascinating to him to learn more about Lois. His opinion changed at super-speed, though, when Martha asked, "What about your home life? Did you ever dream of having a family?"

"Not really," Lois answered, and Clark's heart sank to his shoes faster than he'd thought possible. He hadn't even realized he'd already built up hopes for a future like that with her. It was a dangerous dream, one he shouldn't have let sneak up on him like that.

"Lately, though," Lois continued, "the thought has become far more..._appealing_ than it ever had been before."

His emotions rebounded so fast it was almost dizzying. She wasn't freaked out by the idea? Because Jor had practically given him his blessing, though Clark wasn't entirely sure why. "Mom," he tried to say, hoping to prevent the inevitable trainwreck follow-up questions, "Lois probably doesn't want to…"

"Son, let the woman speak for herself," she retorted.

Lois smiled warmly at the older woman. "Having a family is something I wouldn't consider until I'd found the right guy and settled down...something that probably won't be _happening _for a while."

And suddenly Clark felt they were both making rather pointed statements about _him_. Desperate to change the topic, he asked, "Anybody interested in dessert?"

Lois and Martha both gave him a probing look, met each others' gaze, and started laughing, all to Clark's complete bewilderment. "Sure, sweetheart," Martha said. "Dessert sounds great."

They flagged down the waitress, and Lois again agreed to share some chocolate cake with Clark, since she claimed she'd stuffed herself to the gills with dinner. Martha ordered a strawberry malt.

After the waitress left again, Lois said, "And speaking of chocolate…" Reaching into her tote, she retrieved a piece of lined notebook paper that had been folded into an origami heart. She handed it to Clark and said, "Happy 75%-Off Chocolate Day." At his slightly confused expression, she added, "The day _after _Valentine's Day."

"Ah," he answered with a little smile as he accepted the simple, handmade Valentine's Day card. Seeing writing through the page, he gingerly unfolded it. In careful penmanship, she'd written,

"Clark,

"Hold on, to me as we go  
As we roll down this unfamiliar road  
And although this wave is stringing us along  
Just know you're not alone  
Cause I'm gonna make this place your home

"Settle down, it'll all be clear  
Don't pay no mind to the demons  
They fill you with fear  
The trouble it might drag you down  
If you get lost, you can always be found  
Just know you're not alone  
Cause I'm gonna make this place your home

Love,  
Lois"

Clark sat there, stunned as he read and reread the simple note. He recognized that most of the words were the lyrics to a song by the same musician he'd given to her last night. The words clung to him and pulled him down into memory with the same kind of focus that allowed him to run faster than sight. He was holding Lois again - holding on to her while the heart-rending grief shook him. Holding her the night of their first date when he surprised her and again when he called her a friend. As clearly as if it were happening again, he remembered how tightly she held him, the scent of her hair, the sound of her laugh, and above all, the exquisite feel of her skin of his.

There were other words that clamored for his attention - alone, stringing along, demons, found, home - but the only other one that was impossible to ignore was almost the last one. "Love, Lois" she'd written. He'd known she loved him, had read that in her with every breathtaking kiss (which was half the reason why it was breathtaking), but there were many things he saw that no one else did. As the closing line of a letter, it was almost painfully conventional, except that it was coming from _her_. Was she able to read in her own soul what he did?

Finally, he felt a hand - Martha's hand, he recognized her touch - rest on his and he focused again on the world around him. "Sorry, Mom." After struggling for a moment to find the right words, he met Lois' gaze and settled on, "Thank you. For this." He waved the note slightly before tucking it into his shirt pocket, knowing he'd savor each one of those words another time, when he didn't have Lois in front of him. "For everything."

Her smile warmed him to his toes. "My pleasure."

While they waited for dessert, Martha again turned the conversation to Lois, asking her about what it was like to work for one of the foremost newspapers in the world. She had enough tales to tell that she kept them all entertained through dessert and out into the night.

The one and only motel in town was less than half a block away, and they walked quickly through the cold.

"As soon as they run your credit card, Martha, they'll know where we are," the younger woman pointed out.

"They'll know where _I_ am, but that won't necessarily mean they'll know where you two are."

"Joe?" Lois asked, nodding meaningfully at the row of motel room doors. "Cameras?"

"Yes, but they're not aligned well," Clark answered, feeling vaguely like he was in spy movie or something. "I should be able to keep us out of sight."

"Right. You're up, then," Lois said to his mom, and Martha nodded with an expression of grave confidence. She marched in through the front door, leaving Lois and Clark in the dark for a good five minutes, but Clark was too intently listening in to make small talk with Lois. Everything went smoothly, and they ran her card without a hitch. Martha even made up a convincing lie about why she didn't have a car to register with the motel. (She claimed that her son's car had died so she'd lent her car to him so he could drive to a job interview in the next town over, and he'd be back in the morning afterward to pick up her and his dead car). Clark puzzled over that one in the back of his mind. Why use the excuse of a job interview? Then she returned and they all three walked her to her hotel room.

He handed Martha her bag and was about to leave when she exclaimed, "I forgot to pack my toothbrush!"

He x-rayed her luggage and said, "No, you didn't, it's..."

"Yes. I did," she emphatically cut him off. "I'll just run back over to that grocery store and pick one up."

"If you want a new toothbrush, at least let me..."

"No, no. I'll be back in a little while. You stay here. Both of you." With a conspiring little smile at Lois, she added, "Make yourselves comfortable."

"Mom!" he hissed, but she had already retreated to the outdoors and firmly closed the door behind her. "If she says even a word about grandkids, I'll..." He turned, met Lois' gaze, and realized she'd overheard him. A pang of terror hit him even as he recognized he must have been more affected by the alcohol than he thought he was to say something like that out loud. With his super-high metabolism, he'd never gotten truly drunk in his life, though he'd tried to once after his dad died, but he couldn't think of any other explanation for why he'd let his guard down like that.

"You'll do what?" she challenged, a hint of a playful smirk dancing across her lips. "And to your own _mother_, Clark? _Really_? I just might take back all those nice things I said about you in that article." Her eyes alight with wicked humor, she began stripping out of her winter clothes until she finally let her coat drop to the floor and dramatically fell backwards onto the bed. "You heard your mom. Get comfortable, Woot."

Clark froze at the sight and then forced himself to look away. "I just didn't want you to get the wrong..."

"I _like _your mom," she decisively announced. "She's a lot nicer this time, and I _really _like the way she thinks."

Just-tipsy-enough-to-be-uninhibited Lois was sprawled out in front of him on a bed that, for once, wasn't monitored by a squad of government peeping toms. A part of him - the upstanding, moral part - wilted when he stole another glance and took a mental snapshot.

Gathering the bits and pieces of his composure, he walked to the table and chairs and sat down there instead of joining her on the bed like the rest of him wanted to. The rickety chair groaned when he sat down, so he shifted his solid Kryptonian weight upward a little, grateful he had the option. His chair collapsing out from under him would be the final straw right now.

"It's a pretty nice room for a place even more podunk than Smallville," she commented.

He waited for the rest of it, because that was just the mood she seemed to be in right now. She surprised him when she instead asked, "Are there any cameras in here?"

Clark shook his head. "Our luck isn't _that _bad."

"No need to worry about viral videos of Superman in the bedroom, then," she lightly said, dropping the other shoe.

The mental image of her in a pink camisole pressed against that symbol of hope over his heart flitted through his mind, and he suddenly wondered if she was still wearing it. With profound effort, he refrained from peeking to see. Or from asking her. "You're killing me here, Lois," he grumbled.

She rolled to sitting and crossed her legs Indian-style. With a flicker of a smirk, she said, "I thought Superman was indestructible."

"Maybe," he said, since he wasn't in the mood to argue, "but Clark Kent is a different matter."

The smirk warmed to a genuine smile. "Clark Kent is the man I..." She looked away for a brief second before meeting his gaze again and decisively saying, "...trust."

He'd spent the entire day trying to figure out how to convince people to trust him, and here she was freely offering him that gift. "Why?"

She tilted her head with an expression that usually meant he was about about to be grilled and crawled off the bed to make herself comfortable on his lap.

Clark was completely taken aback. He had no objections - none at all! - but he wasn't entirely sure where he should be putting his hands. _Lois _was on his lap, which meant she was probably much more inebriated than he'd thought and that meant he should tread very, _very _carefully. He finally settled for wrapping one arm around her waist to rest his hand on her hip while his other hand ended up on her knee.

"Because of everything you don't do. And because of the things you do," she answered, pressing the palm of her hand against his cheek. (He pointedly ignored the temptation to focus on her touch.) "Look at yourself. Really, _truly _look. I've seen power abused in so many ways. It's my _job_ to see and expose it." Her hand fell away and her eyes hardened. "Judging by the response we got to the questions for your interview yesterday, you could have a whole harem. You could command entire nations and have humanity bow at your feet. You could be _worshipped_." She shook her head in dismay before meeting his gaze again, her fingers idly brushing his hair away from his forehead. "And what do you do? You wash dishes. You bus tables. You farm. You fish. You take care of your mom." With a grimace, she added, "You ask the man who incarcerated you for permission to save the world. You say 'please' and 'excuse me' and 'thank you' _and you mean it_. Forget flying or heat vision - that's what's truly unbelievable about you."

"Are you saying I lack ambition?" he incredulously wondered.

"No, I'm saying you're deeply, genuinely good." Humor brightened in her eyes again. "It's refreshing. And so adorable and sexy that it's totally unfair."

He raised an eyebrow at that. "Farming is sexy?"

She lightly whacked his shoulder with her hand. "Stop answering everything I say with a question and just take the compliment, flyboy."

"Yes'm," he obediently answered.

A smirk twitching on her lips, she tilted her face down to his and kissed him.

Like with the Valentine's Day card, he focused entirely on her. The world that was frantically searching for them both, the bitter winter night, even the room faded to almost nothing. All he was aware of was this woman perched on his lap, leaning close, running her fingers through his hair as her lips moved over his with excruciatingly slow intent. His answering kisses were more urgent, and Lois moaned softly against his mouth. Her hands slid down to rest on his face, and at the touch, her desire crackled across his skin like electricity. Her longing crawled from her soul to his, so intense it made it difficult to breathe.

She wanted him. The knowledge sank deep within him, as sure as his own thundering heart beat. She wanted him, even knowing he was an alien, a freak. The realization filled him with awe.

Lois leaned back, her own breath coming in sharp gusts. "Are you _levitating_, or are you just happy to see me?" she asked.

He blinked, startled to realize that he was indeed floating mid-air, and crashed back down onto his chair. Naturally, it cracked, though it did have the decency of staying together.

Lois started giggling, and despite himself, Clark laughed, too.

"Way to kill a moment, Kent." She kissed the tip of his nose and shifted to stand up, and he let her go, rising to join her. Still chortling, she glanced at the door. "Where _is_ your mother anyway? She's not an ice sculpture somewhere, I hope."

He X-rayed the door, realizing she'd stand on the doorstep and freeze rather than interrupt them. Fortunately, though, she wasn't there. Looking a little further away, he saw her at the grocery store still. "She'll be here in a few minutes. It looks like they just closed up shop and kicked her out."

"Ah." With a happy little sigh, she reached up to run her fingers through his hair again. "Clark."

"Yes?"

"I just like being able to say it without worrying about the microphones. Clark, Clark, Clark. Not Woot or Joe or Superman. Just Clark. You'll always be Clark to me." Her cheeks flushed pink and she added, "I could say that the rest of the night, _Clark_, and not get tired of it."

"I could hear it for the rest of my life, Lois, and not get tired of it." He'd meant it playfully, but as soon as the words left his mouth, he realized they could be taken far more seriously than he'd intended.

Fortunately, she didn't touch that proverbial snake. "You know that song? The one you gave me last night?"

"Yes?"

"Did you mean it?"

"Of course."

"_Every_ word?" she pressed.

He suspected he knew which word concerned her, and steeling himself against whatever the consequences might be, he said, "If it's not too soon...yes."

She huffed in amusement. "'If it's not too soon?' What's that supposed to mean? It's been almost half a year."

"And a grand total of two dates and one kidnapping," he pointed out, caught somewhere between baffled and elated at her response.

"And the exclusive interview," she pointed out. "I think even Perry was swooning a little over that one. Why else do you think I'd put up with my stalkers for so long if I _didn't_…"

He shrugged, unwilling to admit he still half-expected an email from her saying she was done with playing superspy.

"With all that alien gray matter, how is it you're so dense?" she muttered, but before he could formulate an answer, she leaned in again to press her lips to his. This time the longing he read in her soul was tempered by a warm, enveloping compassion so real it was almost tangible. He clung to her, then, wrapping both arms around her waist and pulling her against him. A thousand little details assaulted him –taste and texture of her mouth, flutter of her pulse, scent of her desire, rush of her _love_ – and he almost missed the crunch of boots in the snow in front of their door.

Clark slumped, but he still held on to Lois because she was almost limp in his arms. Her closed eyes and generally blissed-out expression gave him a rush of satisfaction, and he promised himself he _would_ see her like this – in love and in his arms – soon, even if it meant kidnapping her again. "My mom's here," he softly said.

With effort, Lois seemed to pull herself together and then she opened her eyes again. Her mouth moved like she was going to say something but couldn't quite form the words and after a moment, Clark realized Martha would indeed just stand there in the snow rather than knock. With a frustrated sigh, he let Lois go, steadying her for a couple of seconds until she got her breath back, before moving at super-speed to open the door. "Come on in, mom."

"I hope I'm not interrupting," she said as she crossed the threshold, giving Lois a worried glance.

Lois blinked twice and finally said, "Give me a little credit. We're in the hotel room of my boyfriend's mother – I have more tact than _that_."

"Boyfriend?" Clark and Martha exclaimed simultaneously.

With a small smile and bright eyes, she retorted, "Can _you_ think of a better way to define us?"

It seemed so…inadequate, Clark thought, but he had to admit there wasn't really anything more accurate. They weren't lovers, though not for want of desire. They weren't partners, though they'd saved the world together. They weren't yet soul-mates, though he could read her soul and everything about her resonated with him. "I guess not…girlfriend," he tentatively added.

Martha made a sound that began as a squeal and ended as a clearing of the throat. "Well, you two, you've got less than two hours before Clark needs to be at work in Metropolis. You'd better fly."

Clark looked at his watch in surprise.

"It was wonderful to spend some time with you, Martha," Lois said, extending her hand, but the older woman leaned in for a quick hug.

"I loved it, too," she answered. "I'll have Clark bring you to the old farm again next time and we'll have a real dinner. But you two had better shoo."

"We'll be able to fly faster now that it's dark, though I wouldn't trust a banged-up Geo Metro to handle sonic speeds," Clark explained while Lois pulled on all her winter gear again. "I don't have to worry about flying low and following the contours of the terrain to stay out of sight. We won't have to take a winding route, either, to avoid cities. I should still make it in time. Or close enough."

"I don't want you to be late on my account," Lois insisted, taking Clark by the hand.

He quickly hugged his mom. "I'll see you in the morning." Then they stepped out into the cold night, and Martha shut the door behind them.


	14. Draft

Author's Note: That'll teach me to promise quick updates. :( Sorry about the delay – I can't claim any excuse besides the worst bout of writers' block that I've had in months if not years. I'll do my best to keep the chapters coming, but my ADHD muse is apparently deciding to be fickle lately.

Thank you, though, to the many people who have reviewed this fic and added it to their alerts and their favorites. Your encouragement keeps me going! :)

* * *

Lois reached for Clark's hand as they strode swiftly through the cold, empty night. "I'm not ready to go back."

She just couldn't, not yet. For one thing, it would mean this insane adventure was over, and despite the tech withdrawal, it had felt so..._liberating _to not be under the microscope. It had been so long that she'd almost forgotten what it was like to have a truly private life. Even before Zod arrived, she was somewhat famous, but today she was completely and totally incognito. It was actually kind of fun, even if she'd still done her job while playing hooky.

For another, it would mean the chimera - the stunning, impossible truth of them as a couple - would once again fade to nothing.

He hesitated, considering, and then said, "I've been looking for another job anyway, I guess."

"No, you don't have to _quit_," she quickly said, feeling chagrined. "Can't you just, I don't know, call in sick or something?"

"I haven't accumulated the time off yet. And I've been late a couple of times due to the cape. One more and I could be let go."

"Sheesh, Clark," she muttered, "we need to get you a job as a _professional _where they trust you'll get your work done even if you do show up five minutes late."

Giving her a sidelong smile, he said, "That's the plan."

"How 'bout this, then," she countered. "You drop me off someplace between here and Metropolis - Charlottesville, maybe - and I'll find my own way home. That way I can show up at the Planet just in time to get Perry's approval for the op ed and I'll put it to press for the evening edition."

"I can't just _abandon _you…"

"Clark, I mean this in the nicest possible way, but I don't need door-to-door service. I've got this. It's a pretty basic thing for an investigative reporter to know how to get out of a place in a hurry if she needs to, and I'm not even crossing international borders. Just get me to a town big enough to have a 7-Eleven with a Greyhound stop and I'll be home free."

"They'll find you the second you buy the ticket," he pointed out.

She smiled sweetly. "Hence the need for a 7-Eleven. They let you pay cash for it, and I've got the fake ID necessary to get me there incognito."

"You have a fake ID?" he wondered and focused on the bag in a way that made her suspect he was X-raying it. Sure enough, a heartbeat later he said, "North Dakota? Why there?"

"Well Dolores Rhodes has to be from _somewhere_."

"No, I meant, do you have family there or something?"

She chuckled. "I chose it for the same reason you chose a North Dakota truck stop for your phone call to the Daily Planet."

"Because it's pitch black and colder than Anchorage so no one will bother to take a second look at you?"

"No. Have _you _ever even met anyone from North Dakota? While outside of their state?"

He puzzled over that for a moment (no doubt racking his perfect memory) and Lois continued, "Whenever the ID has any trouble with the databases, I just make a joke about there being more cows than people and how we're technologically backward and everyone believes me."

"And when people ask you about your home state?"

"You're not the only one with a good memory," she pointed out.

He raised an eyebrow at her. "So you've memorized the Wikipedia article on North Dakota?"

"Puh-lease, Clark! I'm a Pulitzer-prize-winning journalist."

"Sorry."

"It was the Encyclopedia Britannica." Lois grinned when he chuckled at that. "I've got this," she repeated. "I really do, and you can trust me to find my way home."

"I do trust you, Lois," he earnestly affirmed.

She gave him an expectant look.

He breathed in long and slow and then let the air out in a rush. "You really _are _independent, aren't you."

She started laughing at that. "Clark, I wouldn't even be _having _this conversation with anyone else."

He tilted his head curiously, and she said, "You woke me up and whisked me away without a word of explanation for _hours_. I wouldn't have gone with anybody else without getting that explanation first, and I probably would have insisted on taking a taxi back to Metropolis rather than sit around and wait for you. Instead, I'm enjoying this game so much I don't want it to end. When it comes to being independent, you're making me go soft."

He grinned, opened his mouth to say something, thought better of it, and tilted his head again to turn his amused gaze on her. "I'll take that as a compliment."

Nudging his shoulder with hers, she said, "Do."

Clark's stride slowed to a stop and he looked around. They were next to a poorly-lit park now that was bordered by empty storefronts or offices on one side and train tracks on the other. "Shall we fly the rest of the way?" he offered, tugging her close.

"Fly as in _really _fly? No escape pod or protective automobiles?"

He unsuccessfully fought a smile. "Yes, really fly. Just you and me, taking our time and enjoying the flight."

"Sounds...irresistible," she grinned, and despite the fact that the only other times they'd flown together she'd been in mortal peril, happy little butterflies danced in her stomach at the thought. "What's the price to fly with Air Kent?"

"This one's on the house," he answered, reaching up to caress her cheek, "in appreciation for your fine writing earlier today."

Nodding, she hoped any blush at his praise would be disguised by the flush on her cheeks from the cold. Squeezing her eyes closed against an unexpected nervousness, she buried her face in his half-open parka and relaxed against him. Then he lifted them both into the air. She caught her breath as awe and delight surged through her and she wiggled her feet in the empty space beneath them. Lois had to agree with his comment in the interview yesterday - of all his powers, flight was easily the most...magical. A giddy giggle bubbled up in her, and she felt more than heard his pleased chuckle. He flew backwards again but slowly, sheltering her from the winter night against his own warm, invulnerable body.

Maybe it was the fact that she was pressed up against that body, maybe it was the adrenaline rush, but she felt something in her soul pivot around him once more. In this moment, she'd literally do anything for him. This went beyond infatuation and dove head-first into undying devotion.

She had it _bad_. He waschanging her in ways she hadn't thought possible considering how infrequently they saw each other; she was a career woman, bullheaded enough to fight her way to the top. She wasn't some twenty-something college coed swooning over a pair of biceps, but she felt that way around him sometimes. His strength was so...appealing. Not just the physical strength (that by itself could be kind of scary, to be honest - just look at Zod), but his moral and emotional strength rivaled and guided it. Recalling the crumpled drone, she reflected that he was strong-willed, too, probably equal to her. A paragon of virtue, she thought, and then grinned at herself for it. It was just so cheesy, or it would be ordinarily, but this was _Clark_, and he was nothing if not extraordinary.

"Penny for your thoughts?" he wondered.

Lois wasn't about to confess what she'd been thinking, so instead she answered, "I'm drafting the email I'll use to break up with you online. Do me a favor? Don't read it. I mean, you'll need to open it, but don't actually read it. Just reply with something generic about respecting what I want and…"

"It's going to be that bad?"

"It's me doing the writing," she pointed out, "and I've got to make it believable."

"What are you going to say?"

"Things that would be true for anybody but you."

"Such as...?"

"That I can't handle the bugs. That the strain is getting to me and that I need a life that isn't under constant scrutiny." She swallowed hard. "That smothering me today was the straw that broke the camel's back."

"Smothering?" he echoed, sounding horrified. "Lois, I don't under-"

"I know," she cut him off, "and that's why I don't want you to read it. Just promise me, okay?"

"Okay," he finally conceded.

They drifted through the darkness in silence then, and Lois was almost stunned by how quiet it was. The little town behind them was already settling in for the night, and she couldn't hear so much as the sound of a passing car. For a woman attuned to life in a full-fledged city, the deep silence was almost uncomfortable. Expectant. Tense. Or maybe it was finally sinking in that he was holding her in his arms and she couldn't deny any longer that she loved him. There was no looming catastrophe to distract her from his appealing _presence_.

Clark brought them both back down to the ground but didn't let her go. He didn't say anything, either, just held her like he had when they were still in flight.

She nuzzled a little closer to him, her cold forehead brushing against his warm chin, before lifting her gaze to his. He was staring at her, looking surprisingly shell-shocked for not having been kissed for a few minutes.

"What?" she wondered.

He blinked rapidly and dodged her gaze for a heartbeat before looking her in the eye again. "We'll be in a much more public setting in Charlottesville." She gave him a curious look, and he added, "We probably should say goodnight here."

Their time was up.

Well, they weren't in as much of a hurry now that he wasn't bringing her all the way to Metropolis, and Lois decided they could spare a handful of minutes now. Standing up on her tip-toes, she leaned in for a kiss goodnight, but Clark surprised her with the intensity of his response. Like her he was taking his time and savoring every touch, every excited heartbeat but with an unexpected confidence.

When they finally came up for air, he managed a smile between ragged breaths. "I'm glad you're my girlfriend, Lois."

Even more than his touch, it made her breathlessly chuckle to hear him echo – with that critical little addition – the words he'd spoken on their first real date. She was a little frustrated that, between her gloves and his beanie, she couldn't run her fingers through his hair, so she settled instead for clasping them behind his neck and holding him tightly as she murmured against his lips, "Me, too." The hands resting on her hips gently pulled her even closer, and that giddy, love-smitten warmth languidly swelled through her. "Really, _really _glad."

He dodged her next kiss, though, and nuzzled her ear before saying, "We probably should get going."

Lois caught his earlobe with her lips and he actually slumped slightly when he gasped in surprise (she decided that having a boyfriend – and she thrilled at even the _thought _of having that much of a claim on him – with super-sensitive skin was way too much fun). "Yeah," she admitted, "it _is _getting a bit late."

He leaned away a little to cup her face with his warm hands. "Now."

Feeling the chimera slipping away again, she asked, "Promise me something?"

"What?" he warily said.

"If they still keep my apartment under surveillance, promise that you'll kidnap me again at some point."

The brilliant smile he gave her then was quintessentially Clark, and she knew she'd be dreaming about it tonight (and probably for weeks after that). "I promise, no matter what, to take you flying whenever you want. Bugs or not, just say the word."

She raised her eyebrows in surprise. "That's quite an offer."

"For the woman who saved the world, it's the least I can do."

"Coming from the man who saved the world, that's an even bigger deal."

He laughed and opened the car door for her. "If you say so, Lois. Now quit tempting me. Finding work in Metropolis that isn't reconstruction is harder than you might think. I _need_ this job, at least for a little while longer."

Not everyone was under contract, she reminded herself, as she climbed in and buckled her seatbelt. "Alright, alright."

"Do you always have to get in the last word?" he asked as he circled around the back to pick up the car.

"Yes," she answered with a smirk, knowing he'd hear as they gained altitude. While she had no proof that he was commenting on that, both her womanly and her reporter instincts told her he was, and she added, "Your witty rejoinders don't count if I can't hear them. For the record."

The city of Charlottesville sprawled out beneath them like a pile of glittering jewels in the dark, and this time Lois watched with interest as they descended. He gently set the car on the ground behind a closed-up dental office on the edge of what looked like the downtown proper.

When he straightened, Lois was surprised to see he was in the Suit. "When did you change?" she wondered as she climbed out.

"Before we left," he said. "I've learned to do it in a flash."

"Or a streak," she couldn't resist adding. Looking around, she asked, "So where exactly are we? Do you ever get lost while flying?" she added as an afterthought.

"Yes," he sheepishly admitted, "but only in cities, really."

"So now you, what, stay up late studying maps?"

"So?" he playfully challenged. "You can't tell me you haven't opened Google Earth just because."

"So?" she challenged right back.

Grinning, he added, "I finally decided to memorize Metropolis' layout after I couldn't find you during the fog at Christmas and since then I've looked at maps for a new city every day. I've got more than a hundred down in the area – including here."

"And that included the 7-Eleven?"

"No, I just noticed it from the air. It's a block and a half that way," he said, gesturing to his left.

"Ah."

"Would you object to me seeing you safely to the bus station?" he casually asked, though Lois suspected he was a little more earnest than he let on. "I have no idea how far away it is from here."

"Good point," she admitted. "I'll ask where it is when I buy the ticket. Wait here."

Luck was with her, and the woman behind the counter at the 7-Eleven didn't recognize Lois. She bought the ticket and then asked for the bus station address. The cashier had to look it up and then said, "It's way over on Main Street – that's gotta be three miles. I hope you're not planning on walking all that way tonight."

"I've got a friend who can give me a lift," Lois answered, pleased with herself for delivering the line with a straight face.

When she returned to the car, though, Clark raised an eyebrow when he saw her. "A friend who can give you a lift?"

"Couldn't resist," she answered, grinning openly.

He scooped her up in his arms and said, "I'd hate to disappoint, then."

"Because my standards are so exacting," she retorted even as she cuddled up against the familiar-yet-alien symbol emblazoned across his chest.

"Pulitzer prize-winning journalist," he pointed out. "You don't win those kinds of accolades by settling for anything less than the best."

She wanted to make some kind of comeback about that's why she wanted him for a boyfriend but they were aloft again, and any thoughts of witty rejoinders got left on the pavement. He flew high enough above the surrounding structures that they'd be practically invisible to anyone on the ground, but they drifted along slowly, moving at maybe twice the pace of a brisk walk. The heat radiating from his body was enough to keep her comfortable at that speed.

When they landed, Clark leaned close for one more kiss, and Lois closed her eyes as she melted into his touch. All too quickly, though, a draft of wind and an acute sense of absence told her he was gone.

Still a little dazed, Lois found her way into the bus terminal, chose a seat in the corner and dozed off with surprising ease.


	15. Lies

_This has to be the definition of cloud nine - literally_, Lois thought. She was cuddled with Clark midair in a hammock made from his red cape. The sun was pleasantly summery on her skin - they must be somewhere tropical. She didn't bother looking around to see, though. Nothing could be more interesting (engaging, _enthralling_) than his smile as he stroked her face. It was the smile he'd given her last night, the brilliant grin that warmed her in entirely different ways than the bright sun above them. She wanted to close her eyes and melt under his caress, but she just couldn't stop staring at him.

An intercom announcement startled Lois awake and she blinked in disorientation as she took in her surroundings. It was 5:40 a.m., and the announcement was of her bus' imminent arrival. A glance outside at the dark, snowy morning made her long for her dream even more. _He promised_, a traitorous little voice in the back of her mind reminded her, _he'll take you flying whenever you want. All you have to do is ask._

She shoved the thought aside, tempting as it was, and forced herself to get back into the game. The dream was over (_for now_, that voice added) and it was time to get back to work. She stiffly rose to her feet and made her way toward the door.

A two-hour bus ride brought her back within sight of the familiar downtown, and then she switched to the subway. Forty-five minutes later, she ducked into the ladies' restroom on the platform nearest the Daily Planet and changed into the clothes she'd been hauling around with her for more than 24 hours now. She emerged with a confident stride, ready to take the world by storm. The government had been looking for her? Well, now they would find her, and they just might wish they hadn't once she was done with them.

The moment she passed through the Planet's front doors, she heard her name murmured twice, but she slipped through a gap in the elevator doors before anyone confronted her. Unfortunately, Ron Troupe, the Planet's best crime reporter, was already there. "Lois?" he asked, disbelieving.

"Hi, Ron. You're back. That's good. How are you feeling? Jenny said you were down with the 'flu, so I didn't expect to see you back so soon."

"Yeah, I'm feeling better," he absently said. "Where have _you _been?"

She laughed, just the slightest edge of nervousness to the sound. "You know, I'm not entirely sure. Somewhere west of Metropolis."

The door chimed, admitting even more passengers, and Lois tried to scrunch into the corner and avoid being noticed. Of course, with the entire nation looking for her, she'd been luckier than she deserved to have made it this far without being accosted. Here, in the place where you'd most likely find Lois Lane, people were bound to recognize her.

To her relief, though, Ron preemptively said, "Give the woman some space." In a low voice, he asked her, "Are you hurt? What do you need?"

"I need to talk to Perry," she reflexively answered, and he nodded. The rest of the elevator ride was spent in uneasy silence.

When the lift finally opened again, Perry White was already looming in the doorway. "Lois Lane," he enunciated, "where have you been?"

Realizing the receptionist on the ground floor had probably called him, she pulled her notebook out of her tote, flipped it to the appropriate page, and wordlessly handed it to him.

Perry's gaze furiously darted over the page, his eyebrows knitting together as he read over her take on them spying on her personal life. She wasn't sure if he would buy that she'd _asked _for a kidnapping that would result in a no-call, no-show for work, but he didn't call her on it immediately. Lois knew exactly when he got to the part about the Daily Planet being bugged because he swore under his breath and looked up for confirmation. She solemnly nodded and felt a rush of satisfaction when her editor scowled deeply. "This means war," she said for them both.

"My office?" he incredulously asked and she again nodded. "War council. _NOW!_" Perry roared, bringing all activity in the bullpen to a screeching halt. "Lombard, Grant, Jurwich, Armstrong, get over here _now_! You, too, Troupe."

Puzzled, the reporters who had been summoned followed Perry to the conference room. He handed the notebook back to Lois while they walked, and as they took their seats, he announced, "Watch your words, boys and girls, and warn your beats. The Planet's under surveillance inside and out, digital and old-school. All your stories have been compromised."

The hush that fell over the room was almost as profound as the silence Lois had felt more than heard as she'd left the little town the night before.

Lombard looked from Perry to Lois and back, frowning slightly in confusion. "You mean they bugged us because of her?"

"No," Lois answered. "Because of Superman. Much as I might leave big tracks in the journalism world, I'm small beans to these guys."

"Cat," Perry started, pointing to the gossip columnist, Catherine Grant. "I know you've got a couple of things in the works that might be sensitive to certain political types. Back off those stories for now, at least until we've got some bigger fish for you to fry. We're not taking this sitting down."

Turning to Lombard, he said, "You've been stuck with all the coverage for Lois' disappearance. Partner with her today, bring her up to speed, and together get me something solid for a front-page response."

He met Lois' gaze. "You've already written me something for the Opinion section, but I want your write-up of the Superman exclusive asap. After we get this brouhaha straightened out. And speaking of, you know what the next step has to be."

She nodded grimly. "I've got to let them know I'm back on the grid - officially, since they're already listening in as we speak."

No one actually shuddered, but Lois could feel the collective recoil to her words. 'Chilling effect' was a _very _appropriate description.

"Troupe," Perry continued, "you're here so I assume that means you're back in the game."

"I was planning on taking it easy today, chief. The doctor said I should rest up, but with Lane missing I couldn't just work from home."

The editor nodded. "As soon as Lombard and Lane have their piece ready, I want you to take his place and work with Lane about these bugs. Find out specifics of what and who - start with anything Lane can give you. Lombard's already been pulling double-duty as it is and I need him back on the Sports beat where he belongs before the playoffs begin."

She smirked slightly. "I've got first and last names and addresses of the scumbags who were watching my apartment. I could even get you credit card numbers, when I bump into Superman again."

Troupe grinned appreciatively. She'd lie in print to protect Clark, but something professional in Lois pivoted around him then, too. If he was willing to help her out from time to time, Superman would make a _very _powerful source. Would he go for private investigator work? Maybe she should suggest that to him the next time they shared an interlude.

"Armstrong," Perry continued, turning to Richard Armstrong, one of the Daily Planet's better political columnists. "You know what to do, and call in every favor if you have to, but I want to know who's been eavesdropping on _my _phone line. Understand?"

"Got it, chief," he answered with a wolfish grin.

"Jurich," Perry said, turning to the intern who straightened when she was addressed by her last name as if she was one of the team. "I want you to be Troupe's hands and feet today. You stick with Lane until further notice, got it? If they take her into custody, you follow right along and you let him know. One of our own _is _the story of the day and we're going to be shouting it from the rooftops."

"And if they take _me _into custody?" she worried.

"I'll make 'em regret it," Perry promised, clearly relishing the thought. Then he demanded, "Everybody clear?" When no one said otherwise, he declared, "Right then, people. Get to work."

As they started filing out, Perry caught Lois' eye and, with his gaze, directed her toward one of the conference room chairs. She hung back until they were alone in the room. "You want to make the call or should I?" he asked.

She softly snorted. "You may as well, because they're not going to give _me _the reward money."

He nodded and promised, "It'll go to the company Christmas party." Then he picked up the phone and looked up the number for the non-emergency police line. "Yes," he said when someone picked up on the other end, "I'd like to report the whereabouts of Lois Lane."

While he talked, Lois wrote out for Troupe and Armstrong the names of the men Clark...Superman had intimidated the morning before as well as anything else she could remember that would be helpful to them. Then for Lombard, she sketched out a basic timeline of the kidnapping, her retreat with Superman to an undisclosed place where she spent the day surfing the internet, writing, and finally having dinner with him before returning to Metropolis. She carefully kept it vague, not even mentioning that they'd seen another soul that day. As she wrote it out, she realized how romantic it sounded, though at the time, she'd been so angry about the Planet being bugged that she had been hard at work. Story of her life, come to think of it.

Lois stared thoughtfully at the wall, trying to decide what else Troupe would need from her before the FBI or whoever arrived and noticed Jenny standing by the window on the other side of the conference-room door. Realizing Perry's instructions had left her confused, she gestured for the girl to enter. "Here," Lois said, sliding the two pages of paper across the table toward Jenny. "Give these to Armstrong and Lombard while I finish these notes for Troupe. By then, we'll know what's going to happen to me."

Jenny nodded in understanding and hurried on her way.

Suddenly remembering that she still had Clark's address in her pocket, she mouthed to Perry, "Be right back," and after stopping at her desk long enough to stuff her bag under it, wandered into the copy room. Pulling out the piece of paper, she ran it through the cross-cut shredder, but that somehow didn't seem good enough. She removed the shredder from the wastebasket, grabbed a handful of the confetti-sized scraps of paper, and went to the breakroom. Dropping the handful of paper into the garbage can there, she cleaned out the coffee maker, dumping the grounds and half a cup of joe on top of the scraps. _That should hopefully be enough to deter your average nosy stalker_, she thought.

As she again topped off her cup of coffee, the elevator opened and spilled out a half-dozen men in black suits who _had _to be government agents of some kind. They swarmed through the bullpen until one of them noticed her and they converged on her. "Lois Lane?"

"Yes?" she calmly said.

He pulled a wallet out of his pocket and flashed a badge that said, 'Homeland Security,' too quickly for her to catch his name. "Come with us."

Jenny sidled closer to the ring of men who were now surrounding the other reporter, her eyebrows knit together in worry.

Lois snorted. "Sorry, but no. I've got a story to write."

"Declining isn't an option," the agent growled.

"Oh, so I'm under arrest?" Lois retorted. "Because in that case I'd like my lawyer present. Jenny, get somebody from Legal up here." She'd been hauled off by the FBI and denied a lawyer before and she wasn't about to let it happen again.

Grateful for a chance to help, Jenny hurried over to her desk, while the agent said, "You're not under arrest. We'd just like to take you to a more secure location and ask you a few questions."

"...which is the definition of arrest," she said. "Look, I know you've got a job to do, but so do I. It's even the same one: asking questions and getting answers to share with those who need to know. How 'bout we hold your little interrogation in a conference room and save us both some time?"

He shifted uncomfortably, and Lois quirked an eyebrow at him. "Unless, of course, you don't want all those surveillance devices recording the conversation? Maybe you're not the only one eavesdropping on us?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," he answered, jutting out his chin, and Lois thought, _Liar_!

There was an unhappy murmur throughout the bullpen as the rest of the Daily Planet staff learned about the bugs. Perry finally emerged from the conference room just as Jenny hollered across the room, "Violet's on her way!"

The agent whose name she hadn't caught smirked at the name, but Lois almost hoped he'd push her. Violet Cummins was a rock of an attorney and Lois would love to see this arrogant jerk run aground against her. Violet had been part of the legal team that had helped Lois get the injunction necessary to visit the Kryptonian ship in the Arctic all those months ago.

"Being difficult isn't going to help your case any," he warned.

"What case? I left for a day and hung out where I could read and write in peace. What _case _are you talking about?"

"The one where you're an accessory to destruction of government property and threatening a member of the military."

_Crud_, Lois thought. Aloud, she said, "Then all the more reason for my lawyer to be present, and that's not being difficult, it's exercising my constitutional rights. You _have _heard of them, haven't you? They used to be important, once upon a time."

The head agent nodded to one of his fellows who produced a pair of handcuffs.

"Where are you taking me?" Lois loudly demanded.

"Into custody for an interview, that's all," he replied. "Since you're being difficult."

"Where are you taking her?" a female voice echoed Lois, and the reporter grinned when she saw Violet stride out of the elevator.

"That's none of your business," the agent answered, glaring pointedly at the other reporters who still stared at the drama playing out in their very own office.

"The hell it isn't. She's my client and I'm her counsel. Where she goes, I go." Violet shouldered her way between two of the agents surrounding Lois and stood beside her, crossing her arms and narrowing her eyes at the man who had been speaking. "Now what is going on here?"

Lois answered before the others could. "They want to interview me about my little escapade yesterday, but they refuse to do it here at the Daily Planet."

"We understand that there are surveillance devices here."

"And there aren't in your interrogation rooms?" Violet shot back. "Where's your warrant?"

Glaring, he said, "I don't need a warrant to interview her."

"She agreed to answer your questions. You can do it here, on her terms, or you can go follow the law and get a subpoena. Either way, you can't expect a woman who just escaped from one kidnapper to walk off with some jackasses in monkey suits who could be nothing more than thugs."

"Lois," Perry interjected, "is there anywhere in the building that _isn't _bugged?"

"I don't know for sure either way, but I suspect that they don't have any in the bathrooms."

"Jenny," he ordered, "get janitorial on the line and have them block off the north ladies room on this floor." Striding closer, he loomed in front of the agent, his ferocious glare reminding Lois that Perry could be downright scary when he wanted to be. "You got yourself an interrogation room. Lois isn't leaving this building. You got a problem with that and I'll have security toss you out on your ear."

"You think your security…"

"I think somebody higher-up is going to have your hide once they read about this in the evening edition. Taking the staff of the Daily Planet hostage is one hell of a way to kill a career, but if you want to go for it, it'll make for a great headline."

Silence echoed for a handful of seconds and then Violet briskly said, "Well, gentlemen, I charge by the hour, so lets get going."

As they filed into the bathroom, Lois once again had to hand it to Perry. Judging by the uneasy looks the agents exchanged, he'd been right to make all these men go into the women's room - he'd given her and Violet the "home turf." That, and she wasn't sure she could have taken any question seriously if it had been asked in the presence of a urinal.

"I'll get right down to business," the head agent said, fiddling with his cell phone for a moment before setting it on the counter next to Lois. It was running a voice-recording app. "Please identify yourself for the recording."

"I want a copy of this file, too," Violet said.

"I'll give you my name if you give me yours," Lois interrupted. "You didn't exactly give me an opportunity to examine your badge."

Frowning slightly, he pulled out his wallet again and handed the badge to Lois. "Alexander Gates," she read aloud. It was good to have that much, at least. Lois reflexively reached for her own cell phone to take notes and then remembered it was still at her apartment - in pieces. Turning to Violet, she asked, "Do you have your phone or anything to take notes with?"

Nodding, Violet pulled hers out of her pocket and handed it to Lois who used it to record Agent Gates' badge number.

"Our, um, supervisor's name is Jack Ellis and his phone number is 555-385-2234."

"Now that's more like it," Violet said almost condescendingly as Lois returned the badge to him. She jotted down that information on the phone before saying, "Lois Lane, reporter for the Daily Planet."

"Miss Lane, where were you yesterday?"

"You'll be able to read my public statement about that in the Planet's evening edition," she answered, straightening.

"You call this not being difficult?" he snapped back.

Relenting a little, she said, "To be completely honest, I'm not even sure which state I was in. The town was called…" She hesitated. They would be able to trace Martha's credit card if they were following her - which Lois was confident they were - but that didn't mean _this _agent knew or even needed to. "The name escapes me. It was something Springs - I kept thinking it was like Radiator Springs from Disney's Cars because it was so small. I spent most of the day in a public library."

"And the rest of the time?"

"Eating out for dinner and traveling to and from Metropolis."

"Were you aware of Superman's activities over the course of the day?"

"He checked in a couple of times. And we had dinner."

"Are you aware he very nearly missed killing two military personnel, including a general?"

"I'm aware he _spoke _with a general."

"Did you know he was going to confront the general before he did?"

"Don't answer that," Violet cut in.

Agent Gates glowered at her for a second before turning to Lois again. "If he left you alone that much, why didn't you try to escape?"

"Because I wasn't kidnapped," she explained. "_I _asked _him _to take me off your radar for a day. Living under a microscope was starting to get on my nerves."

"When did you do that?" he demanded.

Without missing a beat, Lois retorted, "And give away our code?"

Unsurprisingly, he was not convinced that Lois had such poor memory of previous day, and he returned to that line of questioning for a while, trying to weasel out of her details of time and place. Finally he burst out, "Why are you protecting him?"

The memory flashed through Lois' mind of Clark on his knees clinging to her. Something told her it wouldn't be helpful to try to explain her feelings to Agent Gates. Instead, she said, "He's a good person."

"Good people don't trash twelve-million-dollar pieces of government equipment."

"Yeah, about that. What was that twelve-million-dollar piece of equipment even doing airborne in U.S. civilian territory? For the record."

He gave her a withering look.

"Like I said," she repeated, "he's good. He doesn't take kindly to innocent people being threatened. Don't threaten them, and he'll leave you alone."

"That alien vigilante is a more dangerous threat than any piece of equipment we have. He's flying around on whims and we have nothing but his say-so that he's going to be _nice _with his powers. Superman is just a flying loose cannon."

The man was utterly deaf to anything Lois could say in defense of Clark, so she decided to stoop to speaking his language. "If all you have to go on is his good will, then you'd better work harder at securing that. Pulling all weaponized drones from US skies would be a good start. Getting off my back would be another one. And that means leaving the Daily Planet alone, too."

"We don't negotiate with terrorists!"

Disgusted, Lois said, "We're done here." With a quick glance at Violet, she marched out of their makeshift interrogation room. _"I_ don't negotiate with idiots."

…

Lois fumbled with the keys to her front door, more tired than she'd been since...well, since an alien robot shot her in the gut and she'd nearly died from blood loss. Amazing dream notwithstanding, she hadn't exactly slept well at the Greyhound station or the night before. She was looking forward to taking a nice, hot shower, putting in an hour or so on the Superman exclusive without all the distractions at the office, and then sleeping in her own bed.

But when the door swung open, she dropped her bag in dismay. Her apartment had been ransacked. Kicking the tote into the living room, she slammed the door shut behind her and then stalked over to her overturned couch. She tried to shift it back, but it was too heavy, and she'd need to wait until morning to ask one of her neighbors to help her right it. Groaning in frustration, she looked at her kitchen cupboards which had been emptied onto the counter. Her laptop still sat on her kitchen table where Clark - Superman - had left it, and now that she thought to look, her TV was still there, too. The only thing she noticed was actually missing was the tablet he'd melted with his heat vision. Stalkers then, not robbers, had done this. She snorted softly; they probably wanted the tablet for research purposes.

_What a mess! _she thought. _Where's Superman when I need him, anyway? _Annoyed at herself for being both petty and dependent on him, she mentally added, _These and other first-world problems, Lane. Deal with it._

Too tired to clean this all up now, Lois went back to her bedroom which was every bit as chaotic as her living room. She managed to drag the mattress back up onto the box spring but decided to write something else instead of her article, something that would allow her to vent some of her anger about this entire situation.

Lois placed the battery back in her laptop and, while it booted, turned her router and printer back on. Then she sat down to compose the email she'd warned Clark about.

"Woot,

"We're done. This little online romance was fun while it lasted, but your stunt yesterday just turned my life on its ear _again_. I can't do this anymore. I can't live my life under a microscope. I can't stand not knowing day-to-day if I'll ever see you again. I can't handle the chaos you leave in your wake. I came home to my apartment completely ransacked thanks to you, and where were you? You'd already ridden off into the sunset and I'm stuck here trying to pick up the pieces. It's exactly how my life is with you in it, and I'm fed up.

"Don't email me again. Don't stalk me either. And whatever you do, do _not _presume to know what's best for me! I didn't need to be kidnapped, especially when I had so much work to do to get our exclusive ready for press. I can't just step out of my life like that and not have repercussions on my career, and I hate to break it to you, but my career is more important to me than your chauvinist emotional need to "protect" me. I wasn't even in any danger! I felt totally smothered the way you spent all day with me, not letting me think or act for myself. We. Are. Done.

"Lois"

…

The next morning, Lois staggered into her kitchen to start the coffee maker and blinked in surprise. It was all in perfect order, even cleaner than when she'd run off with Clark two mornings before. Same thing with the living room and, now that she checked on it, her spare bedroom.

With a surge of startling terror, she realized he must have read her email despite his promise and cleaned up her apartment as an apology.

Then she noticed the loose piece of paper sitting on top of her laptop. In handwriting that she could only assume was Clark's, he'd written, "I'm so sorry, Lois, but if that's what you want, I'm not going to impose on you. Just know that, if you do ever need me, I'll be there for you in a heartbeat. Don't be afraid to call on me when you need help because, even if you don't want me as a lover anymore, I still consider you a friend.

"Sincerely, Woot."

_Lover_? Lois choked on the thought, the lie that might have been truth if those government agents weren't in the way. Then she smiled in gratitude - it was also the lie that told her Clark wasn't taking her email seriously.

Acting for the cameras (because he clearly had been, too, with his note), she viciously tore it up and threw it in the garbage can. Only time would tell if their act did the trick.

* * *

Author's Endnote: Special thanks goes out to JamesTKent for his input on the agents. :)


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